“Leave the house first; we can talk of that afterward.”

“I have allowed you to talk too much already,” she exclaimed angrily.  “Let us come to the bottom of things at once.  I will not be influenced nor cajoled nor bullied into leaving my post.  Now, do you understand?  That is my final answer.  You who were a commander, who were a leader of men, what would you have done if one of your party had left his post at a time of danger?  I can tell you what you would have done—­you would have shot him, after first disgracing him, and now you would disgrace me.  Is it reasonable?  Is it consistent?”

Bennett snapped his fingers.

“That for consistency!”

“And you would be willing to disgrace me—­to have me disgrace myself?”

“Your life—­” began Bennett again.

But suddenly Lloyd flashed out upon him with:  “My life!  My life!  Are there not some things better than life?  You, above all men, should understand that much.  Oh, be yourself, be the man I thought you were.  You have your code; let me have mine.  You could not be what you are, you could not have done what you did, if you had not set so many things above merely your life.  Admit that you could not have loved me unless you believed that I could do the same.  How could you still love me if you knew I had failed in my duty?  How could you still love me if you knew that you had broken down my will?  I know you better than you know yourself.  You loved me because you knew me to be strong and brave and to be above petty deceptions and shams and subterfuges.  And now you ask me to fail, to give up, to shirk, and you tell me you do so because you love me.”

“That is all so many words to me.  I cannot argue with you, and there is no time for it.  I did not come here to—­converse.”

Never in her life before had Lloyd been so angry as at that moment.  The sombre crimson of her cheeks had suddenly given place to an unwonted paleness; even her dull-blue eyes, that so rarely sparkled, were all alight.  She straightened herself.

“Very well, then,” she answered quietly, “our conversation can stop where it is.  You will excuse me, Mr. Bennett, if I leave you.  I have my work to do.”

Bennett was standing between her and the door.  He did not move.  Very gravely he said: 

“Don’t.  Please don’t bring it—­to that.”

Lloyd flashed a look at him, her eyes wide, exclaiming: 

“You don’t mean—­you don’t dare—­”

“I tell you again that I mean to carry my point.”

“And I tell you that I shall not leave my patient.”

Bennett met her glance for an instant, and, holding her gaze with his, answered but two words.  Speaking in a low voice and with measured slowness, he said: 

“You—­shall.”

There was a silence.  The two stood there, looking straight into one another’s eyes, their mutual opposition at its climax.  The seconds began to pass.  The conflict between the man’s aggression and the woman’s resistance reached its turning point.  Before another word should be spoken, before the minute should pass, one of the two must give ground.