"Oh, well, two weeks?"

"That's good of you; you're kinder at your age than I was--I shall die
when she goes."

"Well, I wouldn't want to live if I were you."

"Just a little longer, knowing that she cares for me. I've never been
free to have the love of a woman the way you will some day, though I've
hungered and sickened for it--for a woman who would understand and be
close. But this girl has been the soul of it some way. See here,
Follett, let her stay this summer, or until I'm dead. That can't be a
long time. I've felt the end coming for a year now. Let her stay,
believing in me. Let me know to the last that I'm the only man who has
been in her heart, who has won her confidence and her love. Oh, I mean
fair. You stay with us yourself and watch. Come--but look there, _look_,
man!"

"Well,--what?"

"That candle is going out,--we'll be in the dark"--he grasped the
other's arm--"in the dark, and now I'm afraid again. Don't leave me
here! It would be an awful death to die. Here's that thing now on the
bed behind me. It's trying to get around in front where I'll have to see
it--get another candle. No--don't leave me,--this one will go out while
you're gone." All his strength went into the grip on Follett's arm. The
candle was sputtering in its pool of grease.

"There, it's gone--now don't, don't leave me. It's trying to crawl over
me--I smell the blood--"

"Well--lie down there--it serves you right. There--stop it--I'll stay
with you."

Until dawn Follett sat by the bunk, submitting his arm to the other's
frenzied grip. From time to time he somewhat awkwardly uttered little
words that were meant to be soothing, as he would have done to a
frightened child.

When morning brought the gray light into the little room, the haunted
man fell into a doze, and Follett, gently unclasping the hands from his
arm, arose and went softly out. He was cramped from sitting still so
long, and chilled, and his arm hurt where the other had gripped it. He
pulled back the blue woollen sleeve and saw above his wrist livid marks
where the nails had sunk into his flesh.

Then out of the room back of him came a sharp cry, as from one who had
awakened from a dream of terror. He stepped to the door again and looked
in.

"There now--don't be scared any more. The daylight has come; it's all
right--all right--go to sleep now--"

He stood listening until the man he had come to kill was again quiet.
Then he went outside and over to the c