"Do not come any nearer," she commanded.
He steadied himself.
"I told you," he began abruptly, "that I was going because I must. That was true; I went thinking I was to meet Death."
She took a step towards him.
"You were ill? You are ill now?"
"No."
He paused. Now that the time had come when he could tell her all, it was a harder thing to do than he had thought. If she withdrew from him now—what would she do after she had learned? Yet he must do this to be a free man, to be even a free spirit. There must be no more shadows between them, not even shadows of the past.
"I told you," he said, "of my life up to the time I came to New York, of the daily grind it was to get that far. That was only the beginning—after that came the real struggle. It was easy to fight with the enemy in front—with something for your fists to strike against. But then came the waiting years. I was too blind to see all the work that lay around me. I was too selfish to see what I might have fought for. I saw nothing except the wasting months. I lost my grip. I played the coward."
He took a quick, sharp breath at the word. It was like plunging a knife into his own heart to stand before her and say that.
"One day in the laboratory," he struggled on, "Barstow told me of a poison which would not kill until the end of seven days. Because I was not—the best kind of fighter—I—stole it and swallowed it. That was a week ago. I am here now only because the poison did n't work."