roken by Plank: "Siward, you have asked me what
I think. Now you must listen to the end. If you believed that through
her--her love, marrying her--you stood the best chance in the world to
win out, it would be cowardly to ask her to take the risk. As much as I
care for you I had rather see you lose the fight than accept such a risk
from her. Now you know what I think--but you don't know all. Siward, I
say to you that if you are man enough to take her, take her! And I say
that of the two risks she is running to-day, the chance she might take
with you is infinitely the lesser risk. For with you, if you continue
slowly losing your fight, the mental suffering only will be hers. But
if she closes this bargain with Quarrier, selling to him her body, the
light will go out of her soul for ever."

He leaned heavily toward Siward, stretching out his powerful arm:

"You marry her; and keep open your spiritual communication through her,
if that is the way it has been established, and hang on to your God that
way until your body is dead! I tell you, Siward, to marry her. I don't
care how you do it; I don't care how you get her. Take her! Yours, of
the two, is the stronger character, or she would not be where she is.
Does she want what you cannot give her? Cure that desire--it is more
contemptible than the craving that shatters you! I say, let the one-eyed
lead the blind. Miracles are worked out by mathematics--if you have
faith enough."

He rose, striding the length of the room once or twice, turned, holding
out his broad hand:

"Good-bye," he said. "Harrington is about due at my office; Quarrier
will probably turn up to-night. I am not vindictive; I shall be just
with them--as just as I know how, which is to be as merciful as I dare
be. Good-bye, Siward. I--I believe you and she are going to get well."

When he had gone, Siward lay back in his chair, very still, eyes closed.
A faint colour had mounted to his face and remained there.

It was late in the afternoon when he went down-stairs, using his
crutches lightly. Gumble handed him a straw hat and opened the door, and
Siward cautiously descended the stoop, stood for a few moments on the
sidewalk, looking up at the blue sky, then wheeled and slowly made his
way toward Washington Square. The avenue was deserted; his own
house appeared to be the only remaining house still open in all that
old-fashioned but respectable quarter.

He swung leisurely southward, a slim, well-built