n!" and the tears of physical
weakness poured down my cheeks.

"_Ce sont des droles de gens, les Anglais_!" I heard him whisper to the
nurse before he left the room.

Belonging to a queer folk or not, I found the prospect more and more
dismally appalling according as my mind regained its clarity. It was the
most overwhelming, piteous disappointment I have ever experienced in my
life. I cursed in my whimpering, invalid fashion.

"But don't you want to get well?" asked the wide-eyed nurse.

"Certainly not! I thought I was dead, and I was very happy. I've been
tricked and cheated and fooled," and I dashed my fist against the
counterpane.

"If you go on in this way," said the nurse, "you will commit suicide."

"I don't care!" I cried--and then, they tell me, fainted. My temperature
also ran up, and I became lightheaded again. It was not until the next
day that I recovered my sanity. This time Lola was in the room with the
nurse, and after a while the latter left us together. Even Lola could
not understand my paralysing dismay.

"But think of it, my dear friend," she argued, "just think of it. You
are saved--saved by a miracle. The doctor says you will be stronger than
you have ever been before."

"All the more dreadful will it be," said I. "I had finished with life.
I had got through with it. I don't want a second lifetime. One is quite
enough for any sane human being. Why on earth couldn't they have let me
die?"

Lola passed her cool hand over my forehead.

"You mustn't talk like that--Simon," she said, in her deepest and most
caressing voice, using my name somewhat hesitatingly, for the first
time. "You mustn't. A miracle really has been performed. You've been
raised from the dead--like the man in the Gospel----"

"Yes," said I petulantly, "Lazarus. And does the Gospel tell us what
Lazarus really thought of the unwarrantable interference with his plans?
Of course he had to be polite--"

"Oh, don't!" cried, Lola, shocked. In a queer unenlightened way, she was
a religious woman.

"I'm sorry," said I, feeling ashamed of myself.

"If you knew how I have prayed God to make you well," she said. "If I
could have died for you, I would--gladly--gladly----"

"But I wanted to die, my dear Lola," I insisted, with the egotism of
the sick. "I object to this resuscitation. I say it is monstrous that
I should have to start a second lifetime at my age. It's all very
well when you begin at the age of half a minute--but w