Guy made a convulsive movement in response, but he only half-raised himself, sinking back immediately with a hard-drawn groan.

Burke bent over him.  “Get up!” he said again.  “I’ll help you.”

He took him under the arms and hoisted him slowly up.  Guy blundered to his feet with shuddering effort.

“Now—­fire me out!” he said.

But Burke only guided him to the bed.  “Sit down!” he said.

Numbly he obeyed.  He seemed incapable of doing otherwise.  But when, still with that unwavering steadiness of purpose, Burke stooped and began to unfasten the straps of his gaiters, he suddenly cried out as if he had been struck unawares in a vital place.

“No—­no—­no!  I’m damned—­I’m damned if you shall!  Burke—­stop, do you hear?  Burke!”

“Be quiet!” Burke said.

But Guy flung himself forward, preventing him.  They looked into one another’s eyes for a tense interval, then, as the blood began to trickle down his chin again, Burke released himself.

In the same moment, Guy covered his face and burst into agonized sobbing most terrible to hear.

Burke stood up again.  Somehow all the hardness had gone out of him though the resolution remained.  He put a hand on Guy’s shoulder, and gently shook him.

“Don’t do it, boy!  Don’t do it!  Pull yourself together for heaven’s sake!  Drink—­do anything—­but this!  You’ll want to shoot yourself afterwards.”

But Guy was utterly broken, his self-control beyond recovery.  The only response he made was to feel for and blindly grip the hand that held him.

So for a space they remained, while the anguish possessed him and slowly passed.  Then, with the quiescence of complete exhaustion, he suffered Burke’s ministrations in utter silence.

Half-an hour later he lay in a dead sleep, motionless as a stone image, while the man who dragged him from his hell rested upon two chairs and grimly reviewed the problem which he had created for himself.  There was no denying the fact that young Guy had been a thorn in his side almost ever since his arrival in the country.  The pity of it was that he possessed such qualities as should have lifted him far above the crowd.  He had courage, he had resource.  Upon occasion he was even brilliant.  But ever the fatal handicap existed that had pulled him down.  He lacked moral strength, the power to resist temptation.  As long as he lived, this infirmity of character would dog his steps, would ruin his every enterprise.  And Burke, whose stubborn force made him instinctively impatient of such weakness, lay and contemplated the future with bitter foreboding.

There had been a time when he had thought to rectify the evil, to save Guy from himself, to implant in him something of that moral fibre which he so grievously lacked.  But he had been forced long since to recognize his own limitations in this respect.  Guy was fundamentally wanting in that strength which was so essentially a part of his own character, and he had been compelled at last to admit that no outside influence could supply the want.  He had come very reluctantly to realize that no faith could be reposed in him, and when that conviction had taken final hold upon him, Burke had relinquished the struggle in disgust.