and to his head, and said,
absently: "It's my duty and it's orders, and... what was I sayin'? The
disgrace of me if, if... bedad! the sleep's on me; I'm awake, but I
can't open my eyes.... If the orders of me--and a good meal... and the
disgrace... to do me duty-looked the world in the face--"

During this speech he staggered to his feet, Jen watching him anxiously
the while. No suspicion of the cause of his trouble crossed her mind.
She set it down to extreme natural exhaustion. Presently feeling the
sofa behind him, he dropped upon it, and, falling back, began to breathe
heavily. But even in this physical stupefaction he made an effort to
reassert himself, to draw himself back from the coming unconsciousness.
His eyes opened, but they were blind with sleep; and as if in a dream,
he said: "My duty... disgrace... a long sleep... Jen, dearest"--how she
started then!--"it must be done... my Jen!" and he said no more.

But these few words had opened up a world for her--a new-created world
on the instant. Her life was illuminated. She felt the fulness of a
great thought suffusing her face. A beautiful dream was upon her. It had
come to her out of his sleep. But with its splendid advent there
came the other thing that always is born with woman's love--an almost
pathetic care of the being loved. In the deep love of women the maternal
and protective sense works in the parallels of mutual regard. In her
life now it sprang full-statured in action; love of him, care of him;
his honour her honour; his life her life. He must not sleep like this if
it was his duty to go on. Yet how utterly worn he must be! She had seen
men brought in from fighting prairie fires for three days without sleep;
had watched them drop on their beds, and lie like logs for thirty-six
hours. This sleep of her lover was, therefore, not so strange to her but
it was perilous to the performance of his duty.

"Poor Sergeant Tom," she said. "Poor Tom," she added; and then, with a
great flutter at the heart at last, "My Tom!" Yes, she said that;
but she said it to the beacon, to the Prairie Star, burning outside
brighter, it seemed to her, than it had ever done be fore. Then she sat
down and watched him for many minutes, thinking at the end of each that
she would wake him. But the minutes passed, his breathing grew heavier,
and he did not stir. The Prairie Star made quivering and luminous
curtains of red for the windows, and Jen's mind was quivering in vivid
wave