"It's not that," said the Sailor. "Not the difficulty, I mean. That was always there, and I was never afraid of it. But I think I am losing grip." She looked at him, a little disquieted. There was a note in his voice she heard then for the first time. "That must not be," she said. "There's no reason for it." "Ah, you don't know. I begin to feel now that I'll never be able to put it through." "Why should you feel that? What reason can you have, a man of your wonderful powers, a man with all his life before him?" "I just haven't the strength," he said in his quaint speech, "and that's all there is to it." To her surprise, to her horror almost, he suddenly covered his face with his hands. Somehow, the sight of a weakness so palpable in a thing so strong and fine was unnerving. "I'll never be able to put it through by myself." As she stood facing him, she felt the truth of that. "Is it necessary?" The words seemed to shape themselves in despite of her. "Yes." Involuntarily, he drew away from her. A sure feminine instinct waited for the words that should follow. She read in those strange eyes that he must now speak. She could almost feel, as she stood so near him, a slow and grim gathering of the will. She could almost hear the surge of speech to his lips. But no words came, and the moment passed. Now that he had to strike the knife into his heart, it could not be done. It was not cowardice, it was not a failure of the will, it was not even a momentary weakness of the soul. He was in the grip of ineluctable forces, of a power beyond himself. As he stood not three yards from her with the table supporting him, his whole nature seemed wrenched and shaken to the roots of being. She couldn't help pitying him profoundly. There was something that had crept into his eyes which harrowed her. Poor mariner! For the first time in her life, she felt a curious sudden tightening of the throat. She could have shrieked, almost, at the sight of this tragic pain it was not to be hers to ease. A moment later, she had regained control. "You must keep on," said Athena. "You must keep on." But he knew that he was down, and that the ineluctable forces were killing him. She may have known it, too. No longer able to bear the look upon his face, she drew back, an intense pity striking her. Was she upon the verge of some great tragedy? She did not dare to frame the question. "Mary." ... She awoke to the sound of the Sailor's voice and of her own name on his lips.... "I've made up my mind to--to go away for a bit." In the midst of these throes, an inspiration had come to him. It was no more than a miserable subterfuge, but it was all he could do. "I somehow feel I'm on the rocks. I think I'll go a voyage. I'm losing myself. I'll perhaps be able to..." A stifling sense of pity kept her silent. "... to persuade Klondyke to come along with me." "I wish I could have helped you." The words were wrung from her.