d wife. The fact that she did not spurn my money would seem to prove
that she wouldn't make anybody a good wife. I know all this is painful to
you, my boy, but I must say it to you before I die. You see I am dying.
That's quite apparent, even to the idiots who are trying to keep me alive.
They do not fool me with their: 'Aha, Mr. Thorpe, how are we to-day?
Better, eh?' I am dying by inches,--fractions of inches, to be precise." He
stopped short, out of breath after this long speech.

Braden laid his hand upon the bony fore-arm. "How long have you known,
granddaddy, that you had this--this--"

"Cancer? Say it, my boy. I'm not afraid of the word. Most people are. It's
a dreadful word. How can I answer your question? Years, no doubt. It
became active a year and a half ago. I knew what it was, even then."

"In heaven's name, sir, why did you let it go on? An operation at that
time might have--"

"You forget that I could afford to wait. When a man gets to be as old as I
am he can philosophise even in the matter of death. What is a year or two,
one way or the other, to me? An operation is either an experiment or a
last resort, isn't it? Well, my boy, I preferred to look upon it as a last
resort, and as such I concluded to put it off until the last minute, when
it wouldn't make any difference which way it resulted. If it had resulted
fatally a year and a half ago, what would I have gained? If it should take
place to-morrow, with the same result, haven't I cheated Time out of
eighteen months?"

"But the pain, the suffering," cried Braden. "You might at least have
spared yourself the whole lifetime of pain that you have lived in these
last few months. You haven't cheated pain out of its year and a half."

"True," said Mr. Thorpe, his lips twitching with the pain he was trying to
defy; "I have not been able to laugh at the futility of pain. Ah!" It was
almost a scream that issued from between his stretched lips. He began to
writhe....

"Come in again to-night," he said half an hour later, whispering the words
with difficulty. The two nurses and the doctor's assistant, who had been
staying in the house for more than a week, now stood back from the
bedside, dripping with perspiration. The paroxysm had been one of the
worst he had experienced. They had believed for a time that it was also to
be the last. Braden Thorpe, shaking like a leaf because of the very
inactivity that was forced upon him by the activity of others, wiped