sed the crisis
and began to mend slowly. The first question he asked me when he felt
himself able to talk once more was, "Nurse Wade--what has become of
her?"--for he had not yet seen her. I feared the shock for him.

"She is here with me," I answered, in a very measured voice. "She is
waiting to be allowed to come and help me in taking care of you."

He shuddered and turned away. His face buried itself in the pillow. I
could see some twinge of remorse had seized upon him. At last he spoke.
"Cumberledge," he said, in a very low and almost frightened tone, "don't
let her come near me! I can't bear it. I can't bear it."

Ill as he was, I did not mean to let him think I was ignorant of his
motive. "You can't bear a woman whose life you have attempted," I said,
in my coldest and most deliberate way, "to have a hand in nursing you!
You can't bear to let her heap coals of fire on your head! In that you
are right. But, remember, you have attempted MY life too; you have twice
done your best to get me murdered."

He did not pretend to deny it. He was too weak for subterfuges. He only
writhed as he lay. "You are a man," he said, shortly, "and she is a
woman. That is all the difference." Then he paused for a minute or two.
"Don't let her come near me," he moaned once more, in a piteous voice.
"Don't let her come near me!"

"I will not," I answered. "She shall not come near you. I spare you
that. But you will have to eat the food she prepares; and you know SHE
will not poison you. You will have to be tended by the servants she
chooses; and you know THEY will not murder you. She can heap coals
of fire on your head without coming into your tent. Consider that you
sought to take her life--and she seeks to save yours! She is as anxious
to keep you alive as you are anxious to kill her."

He lay as in a reverie. His long white hair made his clear-cut, thin
face look more unearthly than ever, with the hectic flush of fever upon
it. At last he turned to me. "We each work for our own ends," he said,
in a weary way. "We pursue our own objects. It suits ME to get rid of
HER: it suits HER to keep ME alive. I am no good to her dead; living,
she expects to wring a confession out of me. But she shall not have
it. Tenacity of purpose is the one thing I admire in life. She has the
tenacity of purpose--and so have I. Cumberledge, don't you see it is a
mere duel of endurance between us?"

"And may the just side win," I answered, solemnly.

I