The conviction of his words went through her like a sword-thrust.  He seemed to have passed beyond her influence, almost, she fancied, not to care.  Yet why did the look in his eyes make her think of a lost child—­frightened, groping along an unknown road in the dark?  Why did his hand cling to hers as though it feared to let go?

She held it very tightly as she made reply.  “But, Guy, it isn’t for us to choose.  It isn’t for us to discharge ourselves.  Only God knows when our work is done.”

He groaned.  “I’ve given all mine to the devil.  God couldn’t use me if He tried.”

“You don’t know,” she said.  “You don’t know.  We’re none of us saints, I think He makes allowances—­when things go wrong with us—­just as—­just as we make allowances for each other.”

He groaned again.  “You would make allowances for the devil himself,” he muttered.  “It’s the way you’re made.  But it isn’t justice.  Burke would tell you that.”

An odd little tremor of impatience went through her.  “I know you better than Burke does,” she said.  “Better, probably—­than anyone else in the world.”

He turned his head to and fro upon the pillow.  “You don’t know me, Sylvia.  You don’t know me—­at all.”

Yet the husky utterance seemed to plead with her as though he longed for her to understand.

She stooped lower over him.  “Never mind, dear!  I love you all the same,” she said.  “And that’s why I can’t bear you—­to go—­like this.”  Her voice shook unexpectedly.  She paused to steady it.  “Guy,” she urged, almost under her breath at length, “you will live—­you will try to live—­for my sake?”

Again his eyes were upon her.  Again, more strongly, the flame kindled.  Then, very suddenly, a hard shudder went through him, and a dreadful shadow arose and quenched that vital gleam.  For a few moments consciousness itself seemed to be submerged in the most awful suffering that Sylvia had ever beheld.  His eyeballs rolled upwards under lids that twitched convulsively.  The hand she held closed in an agonized grip upon her own.  She thought that he was dying, and braced herself instinctively to witness the last terrible struggle, the rending asunder of soul and body.

Then—­as one upon the edge of an abyss—­he spoke, his voice no more than a croaking whisper.

“It’s hell for me—­either way.  Living or dead—­hell!”

The paroxysm spent itself and passed like an evil spirit.  The struggle for which she had prepared herself did not come.  Instead, the flickering lids closed over the tortured eyes, the clutching hand relaxed, and there fell a great silence.

She sat for a long time not daring to move, scarcely breathing, wondering if this were the end.  Then gradually it came to her, that he was lying in the stillness of utter exhaustion.  She felt for his pulse and found it beating, weakly but unmistakably.  He had sunk into a sleep which she realized might be the means of saving his life.