end of the day.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
still waters."

The nurses read the response a little slowly, as if they, too, were
weary.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--"

The man in the chair stirred. He had come through the valley of the
shadow, and for what? He was very bitter. He said to himself savagely
that they would better have let him die. "You say you never loved me
because you never knew me. I'm not a rotter, Sidney. Isn't it possible
that the man you, cared about, who--who did his best by people and all
that--is the real me?"

She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the
sort of luminous, wistful look with which she had been wont to survey
his greatness. Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he
sank back into his chair.

"The man who did his best is quite real. You have always done the best
in your work; you always will. But the other is a part of you too, Max.
Even if I cared, I would not dare to run the risk."

Under the window rang the sharp gong of a city patrol-wagon. It rumbled
through the gates back to the courtyard, where its continued clamor
summoned white-coated orderlies.

An operating-room case, probably. Sidney, chin lifted, listened
carefully. If it was a case for her, the elevator would go up to the
operating-room. With a renewed sense of loss, Max saw that already she
had put him out of her mind. The call to service was to her a call to
battle. Her sensitive nostrils quivered; her young figure stood erect,
alert.

"It has gone up!"

She took a step toward the door, hesitated, came back, and put a light
hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, dear Max."

She had kissed him lightly on the cheek before he knew what she intended
to do. So passionless was the little caress that, perhaps more than
anything else, it typified the change in their relation.

When the door closed behind her, he saw that she had left her ring
on the arm of his chair. He picked it up. It was still warm from
her finger. He held it to his lips with a quick gesture. In all his
successful young life he had never before felt the bitterness of
failure. The very warmth of the little ring hurt.

Why hadn't they let him die? He didn't want to live--he wouldn't live.
Nobody cared for him! He would--

His eyes, lifted from the ring, fell on the red glow of the roses that
had come that morning. Even in t