He remembered what he must do. His will--that strange, detached segment of his being that was cognizant of and superior to his flesh, commanded him to rise at once if he would ever rise again. And by some supreme effort of a body dying if not already dead he twisted himself sidewise, set his feet on the floor, hauled himself erect by a bedpost. Three steps to the door. Three steps from door to staircase. He moved in blind obedience to the will to live, moved with that clear, fantastic conviction of being already on the threshold of death. No pulse, scarcely a breath; speechless. He could not utter a sound. Only motor muscles moving obedient to that imperative will, and that crystalline awareness of what was happening. He had a reluctant shrinking from that picture. To escape all that war could dart at him,--and to die of a cardiac failure on the night of his homecoming. No, by God! Not if he could reach those stairs! He reached them. Felt with a torpid foot for the top step, held to the balustrade with two unfeeling hands, went down _stamp_, _stamp_, heavily, jarringly from step to step. His head swam. He suffocated. But he moved. His mind functioned. His body obeyed his will. All but his heart. That stood still, lay inert in his breast,--until he was within four steps of the bottom. Then it fluttered, feebly at first, tumultuously after a second, so that his breath came in quick gasps and long sobbing sighs. As he realized with a rush of thankfulness that he had won against long odds, a switch clicked above, light flooded stair and landing, and Mary came hurrying after him. "What is it, Rod? What's wrong?" she whispered. He found words to answer while he kept on _stamp_, _stamp_, to the bottom. Those dead hands; blood congealed in them. He began to clap them together. He stamped with his feet on the hall floor like a horse in the treadmill. "Heart stopped," he said weakly. "Been giving me trouble. Nothing the matter with it. Just flutters and slows down. This time it stopped. Had to get up and jog it on the stairs. That's why I have to sleep upstairs. Been warned." "I'll send for a doctor," Mary cried. "Doctor--hell!" Rod's strength was coming back. The blood pounded in his temples. He could breathe, speak without effort, although weakly. "I've had the best men in Paris and London at me. They don't know what's the matter. They say there's nothing the matter. Heart's organically perfect but functionally weak." He repeated it ironically to himself, that phrase of the medical men--when he had got back to normal and was able slowly to ascend the stairs with her help--repeated it silently while Mary sat wrapped in a bathrobe, looking at him with troubled, anxious eyes.