took out his pipe and lighted it deliberately. "Prospective
martyrs are as plentiful as fish in a net," he answered. "Of what good
is the sea's yield without fishermen? ... I sacrifice myself and who
takes my place? Will you?"

Fred turned on him suddenly. "You are not training me to be your
successor, I hope," he said, with a slight sneer. "Because I lie here
without protest is no reason that I approve. Indeed, I wonder
sometimes if I do quite right to permit all this... There are
authorities, you know."

Storch looked at him steadily. "The door is open, my friend."

Fred gave a little gesture of resignation.

"You know perfectly well that I'm not built to betray the man who
gives me shelter."

"Oh, I'm not sheltering you for love!"

"You have some purpose, of course. I understand that. But you're
wasting time."

"Well, I'll risk it... I know well enough you're not a man easily won
to an abstract hatred... But a personal hatred very often serves as
good a turn... Everything is grist to my mill."

"A personal hatred?" echoed Fred.

Storch blew out the light.

"You're duller than I thought," he called through the gloom.

Fred turned his face away and tried to sleep.

The next day he decided to crawl out of bed and begin to win back his
strength. He couldn't lie there forever sharing Storch's roof and
crust. But the effort left him exhausted and he was soon glad to fling
himself back upon the couch.

Each succeeding day he felt a little stronger, until the time came
when he was able to drag himself to the open door and sit in the
sunshine. He had never thought much about sunshine in the old days. A
fine day had been something to be remarked, but scarcely hoarded. With
the steam radiator working, it had not mattered so much whether the
sun shone or not... He remembered the first time that a real sense of
the sun's beauty had struck him--on that morning which now seemed so
remote--when he had risen weakly from his cot at the detention
hospital and made ready for exile at Fairview. Less than a year ago!
How many things had assumed new values since then! Now, he could
exploit every sunbeam to its minutest warmth, he could wring
sustenance from a handful of crumbs, he knew what a cup of cold water
meant. He was on speaking terms with hunger, he had been comrade to
madness, he had looked upon sudden death, he was an outcast and, in a
sense, a criminal. He felt that he could almost say with Hilmer:

"I know a