“You have known her so well and for so long,” continued Bennett, “that I am sure she must have said something to you about me.  Tell me, did she ever say anything—­or not that—­but imply in her manner, give you to understand that she would have married me if I had asked her?”

Ferriss found time, even in such an hour, to wonder at the sudden and unexpected break in the uniform hardness of Bennett’s character.  Ferriss knew him well by now.  Bennett was not a man to ask concessions, to catch at small favours.  What he wanted he took with an iron hand, without ruth and without scruple.  But in the unspeakable dissolution in which they were now involved did anything make a difference?  The dreadful mill in which they had been ground had crushed from them all petty distinctions of personality, individuality.  Humanity—­the elements of character common to all men—­only remained.

But Ferriss was puzzled as to how he should answer Bennett.  On the one hand was the woman he loved, and on the other Bennett, his best friend, his chief, his hero.  They, too, had lived together for so long, had fought out the fight with the Enemy shoulder to shoulder, had battled with the same dangers, had dared the same sufferings, had undergone the same defeats and disappointments.

Ferriss felt himself in grievous straits.  Must he tell Bennett the truth?  Must this final disillusion be added to that long train of others, the disasters, the failures, the disappointments, and deferred hopes of all those past months?  Must Bennett die hugging to his heart this bitterness as well?

“I sometimes thought,” observed Bennett with a weak smile, “that she did care a little.  I’ve surely seen something like that in her eyes at certain moments.  I wish I had spoken.  Did she ever say anything to you?  Do you think she would have married me if I had asked her?” He paused, waiting for an answer.

“Oh—­yes,” hazarded Ferriss, driven to make some sort of response, hoping to end the conversation; “yes, I think she would.”

“You do?” said Bennett quickly.  “You think she would?  What did she say?  Did she ever say anything to you?”

The thing was too cruel; Ferriss shrank from it.  But suddenly an idea occurred to him.  Did anything make any difference now?  Why not tell his friend that which he wanted to hear, even if it were not the truth?  After all that Bennett had suffered why could he not die content at least in this?  What did it matter if he spoke?  Did anything matter at such a time when they were all to die within the next twenty-four hours?  Bennett was looking straight into his eyes; there was no time to think of consequences.  Consequences?  But there were to be no consequences.  This was the end.  Yet could Ferriss make Bennett receive such an untruth?  Ferriss did not believe that Lloyd cared for Bennett; knew that she did not, in fact, and if she had cared, did Bennett think for an instant that she—­of all women—­would have confessed the fact, confessed it to him, Bennett’s most intimate friend?  Ferriss had known Lloyd well for a long time, had at last come to love her.  But could he himself tell whether or no Lloyd cared for him?  No, he could not, certainly he could not.