"What Love may do, that dares Love attempt."
—Shakspere.

It was evening at last: a sullen, breathless evening, heavy with threatening cloud.

Since morning Honor Desmond had been fighting for life, against appalling odds; while the man, whose love for her almost amounted to a religion, did all that human skill could devise, which was pitifully little after all, to ease the torturing thirst and pain, to uphold the vitality that ebbed visibly with the ebbing day. But the very vigour of her constitution went against her; for cholera takes strong bold upon the strong. And Desmond never left her for an instant. He seemed to have passed beyond the zone of hunger, thirst, or weariness, to have reached that exalted pitch of suffering where the soul transcends the body's imperious demands, asserts itself, momentarily, for the absolute unconquerable thing it is.

Frank Olliver, in defiance of a July sun, flitted restlessly in and out of the bungalow; and since Desmond would admit no one but the doctor to his wife's room, she found some measure of comfort in futile attempts to lighten Paul Wyndham's anxiety, and distract his thoughts; while the newly joined husband and wife, so strangely isolated in their moment of reunion, waited and hoped through the interminable hours, and snatched fugitive gleams of contentment from the fact that now, at least, they could suffer together.

James Mackay, the regimental doctor, a crustacean type of Scot, came and went as frequently as his manifold duties would permit. On each occasion he was waylaid in the dining-room by Paul Wyndham, his face haggard with suffering; and on each occasion the little man's decisive headshake struck a fresh blow at the hope that took 'such an unconscionable time a-dying.' Finally he spoke his conviction outright. It was late afternoon, and Honor's strength and courage, though still flickering fitfully, were almost spent.

"I'm doubting if we can do much more for her now," he said, when the door of her room had been quietly closed behind him. "It'll be no less than a miracle if she lasts through the night."

"Have you told him that?" Wyndham asked in a voice of stunned quietness.

"Man alive, no! 'Twould be no mortal use. He won't give up hope till the last nail's in her coffin." Paul winced visibly, and by way of atonement for his bluntness, the other made haste to add: "If there's the remotest chance of pulling her through, Desmond 'll do it. You may swear to that. The man's just one concentrated, incarnate purpose."

Wyndham set his lips, and turned away: and the Scotchman stood eyeing him keenly.

"What sort of a tiffin did you have?" he asked with rough kindliness.

"Oh, I don't know. Nothing much."

"I thought so. Eat a good dinner, man. Starvation's no use to any one, and I don't want to have you back on my hands."

With that he departed, and Wyndham had just decided on filling another pipe, since some pretence at occupation was imperative, when Meredith entered unannounced.

A glance at his face showed Paul that he knew, and believed the worst; and for a moment they confronted one another in mute dismay. The Englishman's inability to put his heart into words has its pathetic aspect at times. These two men were linked by years of mutual work, and immediate mutual pain: yet Wyndham merely laid down his pipe and asked; "Have you seen Mackay?"

"Yes. Met him on my way here. I'm going in to her at once."

And Paul, picking up the discarded pipe, looked after him with envy and hunger in his eyes.

Meredith knocked at the bedroom door.

"Who's there?" Desmond's voice came sharp as a challenge.

"John."

"Come in, then."

And he went in.

The room was large, lofty, and very simply furnished. With the leisurely swaying of the punkah, light and shadow flitted across the wide, low bed, on one side of which Honor lay, warmly covered with blankets, her breath coming in laboured gasps. Desmond knelt by her; and, on Meredith's entrance, set down the feeding-cup, but because her hand was on his coat-sleeve, he did not change his position, or rise from his knees. She held out the other to Meredith, But it fell limply before he could reach her.

"John . . dear," she greeted him in a husky whisper. "I'm so glad.
Sit near me . . here."

He obeyed, seating himself on the unoccupied part of the bed; and taking up her hand, cherished it between both his own. It was cold and clammy, the finger-tips wrinkled like a washerwoman's, and at sight of her face his self-control deserted him, so that he dared not risk speech. For cholera does its work swiftly and efficaciously, and in eight hours Honor Desmond's beauty had been ruthlessly wiped out. In the grey, pinched features and sunken eyes—already dimmed by a creeping film that blurred the two faces she so loved—it was hard to trace any likeness to the radiant woman of twenty-four hours ago. Only the burnished bronze of her hair, encircling her head in a large loose plait, remained untouched by the finger of death.

When Meredith could command his voice, he spoke quietly and cheerfully of the day's work, and of the certainty that she would pull through. Then the hand in his stirred uneasily.

"What is it, dear?" he asked.

"John, I want you to remember,"—the voice was still husky, and she spoke with difficulty—"whatever happens, . . and tell father, please . . it wasn't Theo's fault. It was mine."

The hand on her husband's coat-sleeve felt its way up uncertainly, till it rested in a lingering caress on the dark bowed head. For Desmond, leaning on his elbow, had covered his eyes with one hand.

Meredith frowned.

"Dearest girl, it was no one's fault. Besides, you are going to get well. But talking is a strain on you now, I'll look in later."

He stooped and kissed her forehead.

"Good-bye," she whispered.

"No, not good-bye," he contradicted her steadily. "I shall see you again after mess."

She sighed, and her lids fell. The terrible apathy of cholera was crushing the soldier spirit out of her by inches.

"God! I don't believe she heard me," he murmured in sudden despair.

At that Desmond uncovered his eyes. "She heard you, right enough," he said quietly, "Trust me not to let her go."

And Meredith went reluctantly out, leaving man and wife alone with the
Shadowy Third; the only third that could ever come between them.

Honor's hand slipped down from his head to his shoulder, and she opened her eyes; the soul in them struggling to pierce the mists that deepened every minute.

"Darling," she breathed. "Come closer . . much closer. I wish . . I wish you didn't seem all blurred."

He bent nearer, looking steadfastly into her altered face.

"That better, dear?" he asked, controlling his voice with an effort.

"Yes. A little. Whatever John may say, it was my fault," she persisted, for in spite of pain and prostration, the mists had not clouded her brain. "It was selfish of me to insist. See . . what I've made you suffer. But you don't . . blame me, do you, . . in your heart?"

"Blame you, . . my best beloved? How can you ask it? I . . I worship you," he added very low.

The extravagant word, reviving dear and imperishable memories, called up a quivering smile, more heart-piercing than a cry: and Desmond, putting a great restraint upon himself, enfolded her with one arm, and kissed her softly, lingeringly, as one might kiss a child.

"My very Theo," she murmured, her voice breaking with love. "It has been so perfect . . I suppose that's why . . Not three years yet; and . . I can't bear . . to leave you behind, even for a little."

"You'll not do that, Honor," his voice had the level note of decision.
"If you go, . . . I go too."

"No, no. You must wait . . for your boy."

Desmond set his teeth, and answered nothing. In the stress of anguish he had forgotten his child.

Suddenly a convulsive shuddering ran through her, and her breath came short and quick.

"Theo, . . what's happening?" she panted. "Where are you? Hold me.
Everything's . . slipping away."

It cut him to the heart to unclasp the fingers that clung to him; though he was back again in a moment, holding weak brandy and water to her lips.

"Drink it, Honor. For God's sake, drink it!" he commanded, a ring of fear in his voice. For in that moment, a change, terrible and significant, had come over her. His appeal produced no response, no movement of lips or eyelids. Her face seemed to shrink and sharpen, and change colour before his eyes. Her breath was cold as the air from a cave.

He set down the wine-glass, and in the first shock and horror of it all stood like a man turned to stone. Then common-sense pricked him back to life, and to the necessity for immediate action. After so sharp an attack, collapse would probably be severe and prolonged. He laid his fingers on her pulse. It was rapid, and barely perceptible, but the still small flutter of life was there.

He opened the verandah door, where Amar Singh and a very aggrieved Aberdeen terrier had sat since morning, and issued a swift order for hot water, mustard, warm turpentine; a grim repetition of the battle he had fought out a week ago. But now he fought single-handed, while Amar Singh and a small tremulous ayah, crouching beside a charcoal brazier in the verandah, kept up a steady supply of his primitive needs.

Thus James Mackay found him on his return; still doggedly applying friction and restoratives without having made an inch of progress for his pains. Darkness had fallen by now, and the one lamp, set well away from the bed, made a pallid oasis in its own vicinity. Desmond had flung aside his coat, and his thin shirt clung in patches to his damp body. His face was set in rigid lines; and the little doctor, who carried a heart of flesh under a porcupine exterior, was haunted for days by the despair in his eyes.

"How long have you been at it, man?" he asked without preamble.

"A lifetime, I should say. Possibly an hour."

"No change at all?"

"Not the slightest. But I know . . she's alive."

Mackay scrutinised the awful stillness on the bed.

"We must try hypodermic injection," he said gently. "And in the meantime . . ." he went over to a table strewn with sick-room paraphernalia, and poured out half a pint of champagne, "you'll please drink that."

And as Desmond obeyed automatically, his hand shook so that the edge of the tumbler rattled against his teeth. The body was beginning to assert itself at last. But the stinging liquid revived him; and in a silence, broken only by an abrupt direction or request from the Scotchman, the last available resources were tried again and yet again, without result. Finally Mackay looked up, and Desmond read the verdict in his eyes.

"My dear man, it's no use," he said simply. "She's beyond our reach now."

Desmond's lips whitened: but he braced his shoulders. "She's not. I don't believe it," he answered, on a toneless note of decision. And the other knew that only the slow torture of the night-watches could brand the truth into his brain.

With a gesture of weariness, infinitely pathetic, he turned back to the bed, and bending down, mechanically rearranged the sheet, and smoothed a crease or two out of the pillow. The bowed back and shoulders, despite their suppleness and strength, had in them a pathos too deep for tears: and Mackay, feeling himself dismissed, went noiselessly out.

For a long moment Desmond's unnatural stoicism held firm. Then, deep down in him, something seemed to snap. With a dry, choking sob, he flung himself on his knees beside the bed, and the waters came in even unto his soul.

It seemed a thing incredible that one hour could hold such a store of anguish. The half of his personality, the hidden life of heart and spirit, seemed dead already: and in that first shuddering sense of loneliness, time was not.

A familiar choking sensation recalled him to outward things. The punkah coolie had fallen asleep; and in a fever of irritation he sprang to his feet. Then the thought pierced him: "What on earth does it matter . . now?"

But the trivial prick of discomfort had, in some inexplicable fashion, readjusted the balance of things; reawakened the conviction that had so strangely upheld him throughout the day; and with it the spirit of 'no surrender,' which was the very essence of the man. All the tales he had heard of cholera patients literally dragged from the brink of the grave by devoted nursing crowded in upon him, like reinforcements backing up a forlorn hope, and once again he bent over his wife, caressing the crisp upward sweep of her hair.

"Honor, you shall live. By God, you shall!" he whispered low in her ear, as though her spirit could hear and take comfort from the assurance.

A downward jerk of the punkah rope set the great frill flapping with ostentatious vigour; and he himself set to work again no less vigorously; fighting death hand to hand with every weapon at command. He clung to his renewed hope with a desperation that was terrible; realising more acutely than before that to let go of her was to fall into nameless spaces void of companionship and love. Once or twice the flicker of the punkah frill created an illusion of movement in the face, and his heart leapt into his throat, only to sink to the depths again when he discovered his mistake. But nothing now could turn him from his purpose; or quench that indomitable determination to succeed which is one of the strongest levers of the world.

And at long-last, when persistence had begun to seem mere folly, came the first faint shadow of change. Slowly, very slowly, her face appeared to be losing the bluish tinge of cholera. Fearful lest imagination should be cheating him, he fetched the lamp, and held it over her. Unquestionably the colour had improved.

The loose chimney rattled as he set down the lamp; and he spilled half the brandy he tried to pour into a spoon. Then, steadying himself by a supreme effort, he managed to pour a little of it between her lips, watching with suspended breath for the least sign of moisture at the corners. A drop or two trickled uselessly out, but the muscles of her throat stirred slightly, and the rest was retained.

Then for a moment Desmond let himself go. With a low cry he leaned down, and slipping both arms under her, pressed his lips upon her cold ones, long and passionately, as though he would impart to her the very power of his spirit, the living warmth of his body and heart. And at length, he was aware of a faint unmistakable attempt to return his pressure. He could have shouted for sheer triumph. It was as if he had created her anew. But love, having achieved its perfect work, must be kept under subjection till the accepted moment.

A little more brandy, a little more chafing of hands and limbs, and the miracle was complete. By degrees, as imperceptible as the coming of dawn, life stole back in response to his touch. She stirred, drew a deep breath, and opened her eyes.

"Theo, . . is it you? Have I . . got you . . still?"

It was her own voice, clear and low, no longer the husky whisper of cholera. The caress in it penetrated like pain; and tears, sharp as knives, forced their way between his lids.

"Yes, my darling; . . . and I've got you still," he answered, his tenderness hovering over her like a flutter of wings.

"But what happened? I thought . . ."

"Don't tire your dear head with thinking. By God's mercy, I dragged you back from the utmost edge of things; and you've come to stay. That's enough for me."

Ten minutes later she was sleeping, lightly and naturally, her head nestling in the crook of his elbow, one hand clinging to a morsel of his shirt; while he leaned above her, half-sitting, half-lying on the extreme edge of the bed, not daring to shift his strained position by so much as a hair's-breadth; till overwhelming weariness had its way with him, and he slept also, his head fallen back against the wall.

When at last he awoke, a pale shaft of light was feeling its way across the room from the long glass door that gave upon the verandah. Outside in the garden the crows and squirrels were awake, and talkative. The well-wheel had begun its plaintive music, punctuated with the plash of falling water, and the new day, in a sheet of flame, rolled up unconcernedly from the other side of the world.

Honor had turned over in her sleep, leaving him free to rise, and stretch himself exhaustedly; and as he stood looking down upon the night's achievement, upon the rhythmical rise and fall of his wife's breast beneath its light covering, new fires were kindled in the man's deep heart; new intimations of the height and depth, and power of that 'grand impulsion,' which men call Love; and with these, a new humility that forced him down upon his knees in a wordless ecstasy of thanksgiving.