CHAPTER III


The "last lap" was not a very long one; it grew in distress as the days
went on. The worn-out heart that the Edinburgh doctor had graphically
described as a frail glass bubble, in his attempt to make Andrew
Lashcairn nurse his weakness, played cruel tricks with its owner. It
choked him so that he could not lie down; it weakened him so that he
could not stand up. He would gasp and struggle out of bed, leaning on
Marcella so heavily that she felt she could not bear his weight for more
than another instant. But the weight would go on, and somehow from
somewhere she would summon strength to bear it. But after a while his
frail strength would be exhausted, and he would have to fall back on the
bed, fighting for breath and with every struggle increasing the sense of
suffocation. But all the time, when his breath would let him, he would
pray for courage--as time went on he prayed more for courage to bear his
burden than for alleviation of it, though sometimes a Gethsemane prayer
would be wrung from him.

"O Lord," he would whisper, his trembling hand gripping the girl's arm
until it bruised the flesh, "I am the work of Thy hands. Break me if
Thou wilt. But give me courage not to cry out at the breaking."

One night when it became impossible, because of the stiffness and
heaviness of his swollen legs, for him to walk about, he prayed for
death, and Marcella, forced to her knees by his passionately pleading