“No. I haven’t touched it--not since I went into the hills. But--I might.” “What nonsense! Of course, you won’t.” “How do I know?” “It’s too silly to think about. Why should you?” “It’s not a matter of reason. I tried to stop before, and I couldn’t.” “But you stopped this time.” “Yes. I haven’t had the headaches. Suppose they began again. They’re fierce--as though the top of my head were being sawed off. If they came back--what then? How do I know I wouldn’t turn to the drug for relief?” “They won’t come back.” “But if they did?” She gave him both her hands. There were gifts in her eyes--of faith, of splendid scorn for the vice he had trodden underfoot, of faith profound and sure. “If they do come back, dear, we’ll fight them together.” He was touched, deeply. There was a smirr of mist obscuring his vision. Her high sweet courage took him by the throat. “That’s like you. I couldn’t pay you a better compliment if I hunted the world over for one. But I can’t let you in for the possibility of such a thing. I’d be a rotten cad to do it. I’ve got to buck it through alone. That’s the price I’ve got to pay.” “The price for what?” “For having been a weakling: for having yielded to it before.” “You never were a weakling,” she protested indignantly. “You weren’t responsible. It was nothing but an effect of your wounds. The doctors gave it to you because you had to have it. You used it to dull the horrible pain. When the pain stopped and you were cured, you quit taking it. That’s all there is to it.” He smiled ruefully, though he was deadly in earnest. “You make it sound as simple as a proposition in geometry. But I’m afraid, dear, it isn’t as easily disposed of as that. I started to take it for my headaches, but I kept on taking it regularly whether I needed it for the pain or not. I was a drug victim. No use dodging that. It’s the truth.” “Well, say you were. You’re not now. You never will be again. I’d--I’d stake my head on it.” “Yes. Because you are _you_. And your faith would help me--tremendously. But I know the horrible power of the thing. It’s an obsession. When the craving was on me, it was there every second. I found myself looking for all sorts of plausible excuses to give way.” “It hadn’t any real power. You’ve proved that by breaking away from it.” “I’ve regained my health from the hills and from my work. That stopped the trouble with my head. But how do I know it has stopped permanently?” Wise beyond her years, she smiled tenderly. “You mentioned faith a minute ago. It’s true. We have to live by that. A thousand times a day we depend on it. We rely on the foundations of the house not to crumble and let it bury us. I never ride a horse without assuming that it won’t kick me. We have to have the courage of our hopes, don’t we?” “For ourselves, yes. But we ought not to invite those we love into the house unless we’re sure of the foundations.”