In the hallway of the block in which he had his bachelor apartments Dave almost collided with a woman. He drew back, and the light fell on his face, but hers was in the shadow. And then he heard her voice. "Oh, Dave, I'm so glad--why, what has happened?" The last words ran into a little treble of pain as she noted his haggard face; he had not eaten for twenty-four hours, nor slept for thirty-six. "You--Edith," he managed to say. "Whatever----" She came toward him and placed her hands on his. "I've been here a hundred times--ever since morning--ever since Bert Morrison called up to say you had disappeared--that there was some mystery. There isn't, is there, Dave? You're all right, Dave, aren't you, Dave?" "I guess I'm all right," he managed to answer, "but I got a job on--an important job on. I must get it done. There is not time----" But her woman's intuition had gone far below his idle words. "There is something wrong, Dave," she said. "You never looked like this before. Tell me what it is. Tell me, Dave; not that I want to know, for knowing's sake, but just that I--perhaps I--can help." Dave was silent for a moment, watching her. She had changed her position, and he could see her face. Suddenly it occurred to him that Edith Duncan was beautiful. If she had not quite the fine features of Irene, she had a certain softness of expression, a certain mellowness, even tenderness, of lip and eye; a certain womanly delicacy---- "Edith," he said, "you're white. Why is it that the woman a man loves will fail him, and the woman he only likes--stays true?" "Oh!" she cried, and he could not guess the depths from which her cry was wrung. . . . "I should not have asked you, Dave," she said. "I'm sorry." They stood a moment, neither wishing to move away. "You said you had something must be done at once," she reminded him at length. "Yes," he answered. "I have to kill a man. Then I'm going to join up with the army." Her hands were again upon him. "But you mustn't, Dave," she pleaded. "No matter--no matter _what_--you mustn't do that. That is the one thing you must not do." "Edith, you are not a man. You don't understand. That is the one thing I must do." "But you can't fight for your country, then. You will only increase its troubles in these troubled times. Don't think I'm pleading for _him_, Dave, but for you, for the sake of us--for the sake of those--who care." He took her hands in his and raised them to his shoulders and drew her face close to his. Then, speaking very slowly, and with each word by itself, "Do you really care?" he said. "Oh, Dave!" "Then come to my room and talk to me. Talk to me! Talk to me! For God's sake talk to me. I must talk to some one." She followed him. Inside the room he had himself under control again. The street lights flooded through the windows, so he did not press the switch. He motioned her to a chair. And then he told her the story, all he knew.