She had known life's truths better than he. Honor, after all, was a tangible thing—as tangible as the devouring agony in his brain. And he had lost his honor—
She had written that a man moulds himself into the perfect and complete, or he breaks the clay with his own hands, and he had not believed her until now, when the clay lay broken.
It had been coming to this all these months, and he had gone on blindly. Cary had tried to save him by that letter; John had tried to save him, and had come out to this accursed hole to serve him, because he had been a coward and had written for him—not strong enough to serve himself—and he had sent John off to meet the death that he himself deserved. No, he was not worthy of such a death. Death would glorify John. It would have redeemed him.
The irrevocable past that had gone from his keeping haunted him ghost-like through the night watches, as did the agony of the future. If there were but a chance—the shadow of a chance—of winning back the last hours!
If that face would only fade!
And he had thought himself so strong, and he and death had looked each in the face of the other so often!
And the long line of pictures on the wall began again, fading and reappearing, but the face of Cary did not fade.
After awhile the personality of the face lost itself and it became to him but the symbol of that high living, toward the attainment of which he had failed, falling in the dust.
His stiff fingers relaxed on the sides of the bed, and he sank back with a thud like a dead weight. The dead trooper could not have fallen more heavily.
The wound in his shoulder was only a flesh hurt—he had been careful of that—he remembered with a grim, awful self-accusation. If it only had gone deeper than he had planned. Before the thought had died he was searching for his handkerchief and when he had found it he began to knot it feverishly and pull it around his throat—sudden strength coming to his hands. Then, with an oath, he jerked at the linen band and flung it from him to the hospital floor, where it lay—a spot of white in the darkness. The power to move deserted him, and his arms hung over the sides of the bed—limp and motionless.