we had been always."

The rushing, eager voice stopped. He bent and laid his hand on the older
man's and stared at his face, half hidden now in the shadows of the
lowering fire. There was no response. The heavy head did not lift and
the attitude was unstirred, hopeless. As if struck by a blow he sprang
erect and his fingers shut hard. He spoke as if to himself, brokenly.

"He does not believe--a single word--I say. I can't help him--I
_can't_ help him."

Suddenly the clinched fists flung out as if of a power not their own,
and his voice rang across the room.

"God!" The word shot from him as if a thunderbolt fell with it. "God!
Lift the bandage!"

A log fell with a crash into the fire; great battling shadows blurred
all the air; he was gone.

The man, startled, drew up his bent shoulders, and pushed back a lock of
gray hair and stared about, shaking, bewildered. The ringing voice, the
word that had flashed as if out of a larger atmosphere--the place was
yet full of these, and the shock of it added a keenness to his misery.
His figure swung sideways; he fell on the cushions of the sofa and his
arms stretched across them, his gray head lying heedless; sobs that tore
roots came painfully; it was the last depth. Out of it, without his
volition, he spoke aloud.

"God, God, God!" his voice said, not prayerfully, but repeating the