“I’ve got to get you out of my way.”  He tried to fling her across the corridor into her own cabin, but she had fastened herself to him.

“Don’t!” she panted.  “Don’t do anything to yourself—­”

“Let go of me!  Unclasp your arms!”

But she clung the more desperately and wound her limbs around his, almost tripping him.

“I won’t give you up!” she gasped.

“What do you care?” he retorted hoarsely, striving to tear himself loose.  “I want to get some rest—­somewhere!”

“You’re hurting!  You’re breaking my arm!  Kay!  Kay! what are you doing to me?” she wailed.

Something—­perhaps the sound of his own name falling from her lips for the first time—­checked his mounting frenzy.  She could feel every muscle in his body become rigidly inert.

“Kay!” she whispered, fastening herself to him convulsively.  For a full minute she sustained his half-insane stare, then it altered, and her own eyes slowly closed, though her head remained upright on the rigid marble of her neck.

The crisis had been reached:  the tide of frenzy was turning, had turned, was already ebbing.  She felt it, was conscious that he also had become aware of it.  Then his grasp slackened, grew lax, loosened, and almost spent.  She ventured to unwind her limbs from his, to relax her stiffened fingers, unclasp her arms.

It was over.  She could scarcely stand, felt blindly for support, rested so, and slowly unclosed her eyes.

“I’ve had to fight very hard for you,” she whispered.  “But I think I’ve won.”

He answered with difficulty.

“Yes—­if you want the dog you fought for.”

“It isn’t what I want, Kay.”

“All right, I guess I can face it through—­after this....  But I don’t know why you did it.”

“I do.”

“Do you?  Don’t you know I’m not a man, but a beast?  And there are half a hundred million real men to replace me—­to do what you and the country expect of real men.”

“What may be expected of them I expect of you.  Kay, I’ve made a good fight for you, haven’t I?”

He turned his quenched eyes on her.  “From gutter to hospital, from hospital to sanitarium, from sanitarium to ship,” he said in a colourless voice.  “Yes, it was—­a—­good—­fight.”

“What a Calvary!” she murmured, looking at him out of clear, sorrowful eyes.  “And on your knees, poor boy!”

“You ought to know.  You have made every station with me—­on your tender bleeding knees of a girl!” He choked, turned his head swiftly; and she caught his hand.  The break had come.

“Oh, Kay!  Kay!” she said, quivering all over, “I have done my bit and you are cured!  You know it, don’t you?  Look at me, turn your head.”  She laid her slim hand flat against his tense cheek but could not turn his face.  But she did not care; the palm of her hand was wet.  The break had come.  She drew a deep, uneven breath, let go his hand.