"I've not faltered," she said soberly. "I meant it, Nick. Without you, life would be as empty as that airless void you speak of. I'm not afraid. What's there to be afraid of?" "Only the transition, Pat. That and the unknown--but no situation could possibly be more terrible than our present one. It _couldn't_ be! Oblivion, annihilation--they're preferable, aren't they?" "Oh, yes! Nothing I can imagine could be other than a change for the better." "Then let's face it!" His voice took on a note of determination. "I've thought to face it a dozen times before this, and each time I've hesitated. The hesitation of a coward, Pat." "You're no coward, dear. It was that illusion of hope; that always weakens one. No one's strong who hasn't given up hope." "Then," he repeated, "let's face it!" "How, Nick?" "My father has left us the means. There in the cabinet are a hundred deaths--swift ones, lingering ones, painful, and easy! I don't know one from the other; our choice must be blind." He strode over to the case, sending slivers of glass from the shattered front glistening along the floor. "I'd choose an easy one, Dear, if I knew, for your sake. Euthanasia!" He stared hesitantly at the files of mysterious drugs with their incomprehensible labels. Suddenly the scene appeared humorous to the girl, queerly funny, in some unnatural horrible fashion. Her nerves, overstrained for hours, were on the verge of breaking; without realization of it, she had come to the border of hysteria. "Shopping for death!" she choked, trying to suppress the wild laughter that beat in her throat. "Which one's most suitable? Which one's most becoming? Which one"--an hysterical laughing sob shook her--"will wear the longest?" He turned, gazing at her with an illogical concern in his face. "What's the difference?" she cried wildly. "I don't care--painful or pleasant, it all ends in the same grave! Close your eyes and choose!" Suddenly he was holding her in his arms again, and she was sobbing, clinging to him frantically. She was miserably unstrung; her body shook under the impact of her gasping breath. Then gradually, she quieted, and was silent against him. "We've been mad!" he murmured. "It's been an insane idea--for me to inflict this on you, Pat. Do you think I could consider the destruction of your beauty, Dear? I've been lying to myself, stifling my judgment with poetic imagery, when all the while it was just that I'm afraid to face the thing alone!" "No," she murmured, burying her face against his shoulder. "I'm the coward, Nick. I'm the one that's frightened, and I'm the one that broke down! It's just been--too much, this evening; I'm all right now." "But we'll not go through with _this_, Pat!" "But we will! It's better than life without you, Dear. We've argued and argued, and at last forgotten the one truth, the one thing I'll never retract: I can't face living without you, Nick! I can't!"