Faunce laughed bitterly.
“You forget I’m a coward!”
“Sometimes cowards take that way—it’s easy.”
“Don’t be alarmed, I sha’n’t! I’ve always had a tenacious wish for life. If I hadn’t had it, I’d never have done—the thing I did. I simply couldn’t risk dying.”
“Yet you’re going back down there!”
Faunce gazed at the doctor a little wildly, his eyes shining.
“It draws me—I can feel it! But I’ll take no risks; don’t be afraid of that. I know—know perfectly—that I’ll never risk my own skin, no matter how I risk others’.”
The doctor looked at him curiously. “There are two men in you, Faunce. Dose out the one with heroic medicine, and the other would have room to grow. You’d find yourself a hero!”
Faunce turned a haggard face on him.
“When she left me—when I saw the look she gave me—if I’d dared, if I’d had a white man’s courage, I’d have hung myself!” He spoke with such passion and force that it shook him out of his apathy. He stretched out a shaking hand toward the doctor. “For God’s sake, man, give me a dose that’ll deaden my nerves, so that I’ll have the courage to kill myself!”