And then it was that Lloyd felt something breakdown within her, something to which she could not put a name.  A mysterious element of her character, hitherto rigid and intact, was beginning at last to crumble.  Somewhere a breach had been opened; somewhere the barrier had been undermined.  The fine steadfastness that was hers, and that she had so dearly prized, her strength in which she had gloried, her independence, her splendid arrogant self-confidence and conscious power seemed all at once to weaken before this iron resolve that shut its ears and eyes, this colossal, untutored, savage intensity of purpose.

And abruptly her eyes were opened, and the inherent weakness of her sex became apparent to her.  Was it a mistake, then?  Could not a woman be strong?  Was her strength grafted upon elemental weakness—­not her individual weakness, but the weakness of her sex, the intended natural weakness of the woman?  Had she built her fancied impregnable fortress upon sand?

But habit was too strong.  For an instant, brief as the opening and shutting of an eye, a vision was vouchsafed to her, one of those swift glimpses into unplumbed depths that come sometimes to the human mind in the moments of its exaltation, but that are gone with such rapidity that they may not be trusted.  For an instant Lloyd saw deep down into the black, mysterious gulf of sex—­down, down, down where, immeasurably below the world of little things, the changeless, dreadful machinery of Life itself worked, clashing and resistless in its grooves.  It was a glimpse fortunately brief, a vision that does not come too often, lest reason, brought to the edge of the abyss, grow giddy at the sight and, reeling, topple headlong.  But quick the vision passed, the gulf closed, and she felt the firm ground again beneath her feet.

“I shall not,” she cried.

Was it the same woman who had spoken but one moment before?  Did her voice ring with the same undaunted defiance?  Was there not a note of despair in her tones, a barely perceptible quaver, the symbol of her wavering resolve?  Was not the very fact that she must question her strength proof positive that her strength was waning?

But her courage was unshaken, even if her strength was breaking.  To the last she would strive, to the end she would hold her forehead high.  Not till the last hope had been tried would she acknowledge her defeat.

“But in any case,” she said, “risk is better than certainty.  If I risk my life by staying, it is certain that he will die if I leave him at this critical moment.”

“So much the worse, then—­you cannot stay.”

Lloyd stared at him in amazement.

“It isn’t possible; I don’t believe you can understand.  Do you know how sick he is?  Do you know that he is lying at the point of death at this very moment, and that the longer I stay away from him the more his life is in peril?  Has he not rights as well as I; has he not a right to live?  It is not only my own humiliation that is at stake, it is the life of your dearest friend, the man who stood by you, and helped you, and who suffered the same hardships and privations as yourself.”