e this way to any man. ... It is likely I should have spoken
to my mother about it. ... I had expected to. It may be weakness--I don't
know; but I'd like to talk a little about it to somebody. And there's
nobody fit to listen, except you."

"If you feel that way," said Plank slowly, "I will be very glad to
listen."

"I feel that way. I've been through--some things; I've been pretty sick,
Plank. It tires a man out; a man's head and shoulders get tired. Oh, I
don't mean the usual reaction from self-contempt, disgust--the dreadful,
aching sadness of it all which lasts even while desire, stunned for the
moment, wakens into craving. I don't mean that. It is something else--a
deathly, mental solitude that terrifies. I tell you, no man except a man
smitten by my malady knows what solitude can be! ... There! I didn't mean
to be theatrical; I had no intention of--"

"Go on," cut in Plank heavily.

"Go on! ... Yes, I want to. You know what a pillow is to a tired man's
shoulders. I want to use your sane intelligence to rest on a moment.
It's my brain that's tired, Plank."

Although everybody had cynically used Plank, nobody had ever before
found him a necessity.

"Go on," he said unsteadily. "If I can be of use to you, Siward, in
God's name let me be, for I have never been necessary to anybody in all
my life."

Siward rested his head on one clinched hand: "How much chance do you
think I have?" he asked wearily.

"Chance to get well?"

"Yes."

Plank considered for a moment, then: "You are not trying, Siward."

"I have been trying since--since March."

"Since March?"

"Yes."

Plank looked at him curiously: "What happened in March?"

"Had I better tell you?"

"You know better than I."

Siward, cheek crushed against his fist, his elbow on the desk, gazed at
him steadily:

"In March," he said, "Miss Landis spoke to me. I've made a better fight
since."

Plank's serious face darkened. "Is she the only anchor you have?"

"Plank, I am not even sure of her. I have made a better fight since
then; that is all I dare say. I know what men think about a man like
me; I knew they demand character, pride, self-denial. But, Plank, I am
driving faster and faster toward the breakers, and these anchors are
dragging. For it is not, in my case, the physical failure to obey the
will; it is the will itself that has been attacked from the first.
That is the horror of it. And what is there behind the will-power to
strengthen it?