With him, as the bearing of the physical pain grew mechanical and the other things grew nearer, the worst of it was wondering what he should do with the days that were ahead. His spirit would not go with his sight. His desire to do was not to be crushed with his ability for doing. What then of the empty days to come? How smother the passion for his work? And if he did smother it, what remained? While he lived, how deafen himself to the call of life? Through what channel could he hope to work out the things that were in him? And how remain himself if constantly denying to himself the things which were his? It was that tormented him more than the relinquishing of the specific thing he had believed would crown the work of his life. His fight now would be a fight for clinging to that in him which was fundamental. But with what weapon should he fight? Many times he failed to bear it in conformity with his ideal of bearing it. There were hours of not bearing it at all; hours of cursing his fate and damning the world. Then it was her touch upon his hand, her tear upon his cheek, her broken word which could bring him again into the sphere of what he desired to be. His desire to help her in bearing it, his thankfulness in having her,--those the factors in his control. There were two weeks of that: weeks in which two frightened, baffled souls fought for strength to accept and power to readjust. Their failures, the doubts, the rage, they sought to keep from each other; their hard won victories, their fought for courage they gave to the uttermost. A failure of one was a failure for one; but a victory of one was a victory for two. It was through that method courage succeeded in some measure in holding its own against bitter abandonment to despair. His last looks were at her face. It was that he would take with him into the darkness. As a man setting sail for a far country seeks to the last the face upon the shore, so his last seeing gaze rested yearningly upon the dear face that was to pass forever from his vision. And when the end had come, when hungering eyes turned to the face they could not see, and he knew with the certainty of encountered reality that he would never again see the love lights in her eyes, that others would respond to the smile that was gone from him forever, others read in her face the things from which he was shut out, when he knew he would never again watch the laughter creep into her eyes and the firelight play upon her hair, it came upon him as immeasurably beyond all power to endure, and in that hour he broke down and in the refuge of her arms gave way to the utter anguish of his heart. And she, all of her soul roused in the passion to comfort him, whispered hotly, the fierce tenderness of the defending mother in her voice: "You shall not suffer! You shall not! I will make it up to you! I will make it right!" PART TWO CHAPTER XX MARRIAGE AND PAPER BAGS