Deliberately his friend bent forward, took away the shielding arm, and looked down into Opdyke's eyes unflinchingly.
"Reed, you must not let yourself get morbid," he said steadily. "God knows there's every reason that you should; and yet, once you do, the game is up. This is a thing you must face squarely, and remember, while you face it, that not one life is concerned, but two." Then he let go the arm, which went back to the old position, and, for a time, the room was very still.
"Old man," Whittenden said, after a longish interval of smoking and watching the shielded face; "I know I'm not much use; but doesn't it help a little to know I'm here, and sick with the seeing for myself all that this thing means to you? Of course, I had the letters; but they didn't go far. One has to come and talk it out; and—Well, I'm here."
Then the arm came down, and the heavy eyes met Whittenden's.
"That's why I sent for you," Reed said. "I wanted you."
Ramsdell, in the next room, had quite a little doze, before once more the voices waked him.
"You see," Reed said at last, as if there had been no pause at all; "I was a little in the state those fellows were in, up at the mine. I needed something equivalent to their extreme unction. The cases are analogous; though, after all, I am not sure it would be quite as hard to die into the next world as I'm finding it to die out of this."
Whittenden's clear eyes flickered. Then he braced himself and asked the direct question to which his friend, for two long hours, had been so plainly leading.
"Reed, do you mean this thing is—permanent?"
"Yes."