"Don't be afraid. Stand up and fight."
Her pathetic voice recalled him.
"But think! You said you were afraid of pain. You ought to know what fear is."
He answered slowly, and in what seemed almost exaltation,—
"I am afraid of pain; but when the time comes I shan't wait for it. I shall go out to meet it."
"What do you mean?"
He seemed another creature, all steel and fire, not an impersonal thing speaking out of the dark.
"Don't you know we all want something big, something bigger than we are to fight and conquer? Before we leave this earth, we want to make our mark on it, that shall not be washed away."
"Are you ambitious?"
"I don't know. I do know I mean to live—when I am free."