Was it the same woman who had spoken but one moment before? Did her voice ring with the same undaunted defiance? Was there not a note of despair in her tones, a barely perceptible quaver, the symbol of her wavering resolve? Was not the very fact that she must question her strength proof positive that her strength was waning? But her courage was unshaken, even if her strength was breaking. To the last she would strive, to the end she would hold her forehead high. Not till the last hope had been tried would she acknowledge her defeat. "But in any case," she said, "risk is better than certainty. If I risk my life by staying, it is certain that he will die if I leave him at this critical moment." "So much the worse, then--you cannot stay." Lloyd stared at him in amazement. "It isn't possible; I don't believe you can understand. Do you know how sick he is? Do you know that he is lying at the point of death at this very moment, and that the longer I stay away from him the more his life is in peril? Has he not rights as well as I; has he not a right to live? It is not only my own humiliation that is at stake, it is the life of your dearest friend, the man who stood by you, and helped you, and who suffered the same hardships and privations as yourself." "What's that?" demanded Bennett with a sudden frown. "If I leave Mr. Ferriss now, if he is left alone here for so much as half an hour, I will not answer--" "Ferriss! What are you talking about? What is your patient's name?" "Didn't you know?" "Ferriss! Dick Ferriss! Don't tell me it's Dick Ferriss." "I thought all the time you knew--that you had heard. Yes, it is Mr. Ferriss." "Is he very sick? What is he doing out here? No, I had not heard; nobody told me. Pitts was to write--to--to wire. Will he pull through? What's the matter with him? Is it he who had typhoid?" "He is very dangerously ill. Dr. Pitts brought him here. This is his house. We do not know if he will get well. It is only by watching him every instant that we can hope for anything. At this moment there is no one with him but a servant. _Now_, Mr. Bennett, am I to go to my patient?" "But--but--we can get some one else." "Not before three hours, and it's only the truth when I tell you he may die at any minute. Am I to go?" In a second of time the hideous situation leaped up before Bennett's eyes. Right or wrong, the conviction that Lloyd was terribly imperilling her life by remaining at her patient's bedside had sunk into his mind and was not to be eradicated. It was a terror that had gripped him close and that could not be reasoned away. But Ferriss? What of him? Now it had brusquely transpired that his life, too, hung in the balance. How to decide? How to meet this abominable complication wherein he must sacrifice the woman he so dearly loved or the man who was the Damon to his Pythias, the Jonathan to his David? "Am I to go?" repeated Lloyd for the third time.