“Tell him,” he said, “that it breaks a man’s luck to know what he wants.” “Yes,” said Burke. “Is there anything else?” The strength had drained out of Corey’s voice with the last words. Again he waited while he seemed to decide. And when he spoke, at last, a strange gentleness had come into his tone, so that Burke was not surprised to hear that the message was meant now for a woman. “Tell him,” said Corey, “there’s no use letting _her_ know about the _Medaille Militaire_.” And although Burke had divined some obscure meaning in Corey’s words, he was yet not quite certain that he had heard aright. “You mean that she’s _not_ to know?” Corey nodded his head, yes, and Burke saw that he was no longer able to speak. Turning, he motioned an orderly to his side, and whispered that he was afraid Corey would never last until eleven. The orderly sped away, and a moment later the French doctor in charge stood beside Corey’s stretcher, opening his hypodermic case. And then, Burke said, he had done what seemed to him the “queerest” thing of all. He had made a signal for Burke to come nearer, and when he had leaned down, he said, “Remember to tell him I didn’t take _that_.” He was looking at the hypodermic the doctor held in his hand. “But the _Medaille_—” began Burke, and was stopped by the strangeness of Corey’s expression. He had, he said, smiled a secret mysterious smile, and closed his eyes with a curious look of contentment. And even the French doctor had seen, by something in his faint gesture of refusal, that Corey would never submit to his restorative. He put the case down on a box, with a nod to the orderly, in case Corey should change his mind. And Burke had stayed by until the Division General, just half an hour too late, had arrived at exactly eleven o’clock. Corey had not changed his mind.... That, then, was the end of the story. So much affected was I at the nature of poor Corey’s death that I almost forgot Mr. Ewing, sitting there across from me in our comfortable smoking-car, and that he might, in all decency, expect some comment from me. Indeed, I think I should have forgotten altogether if I had not felt after a little a relaxation of his long-continued gaze, and I knew he was going to speak. “Why,” he said, “do _you_ think he didn’t want her to know?” So that was the thing which had puzzled him in New York, the thing which still puzzled him now. Well, it had puzzled me, too; and I could give him no answer, except to confess that I didn’t know. But long after the train had passed through Dubuque, and Mr. Ewing and I had said good-by, an answer, perhaps right, perhaps wrong, presented itself to my mind. If one followed Corey at all, one must follow him all the way; perhaps he had wished to save her the pang of an added disgrace. THE DARK HOUR _By_ WILBUR DANIEL STEELE From _The Atlantic Monthly_ _Copyright, 1918, by The Atlantic Monthly Co._ _Copyright, 1919, by Wilbur Daniel Steele._