Lolly threw down her cigarette, and came and stood over me.
"Listen to me," she said. "I'll tell you what you are going to do, Nora Ascough. You are going to brace up like a man. You're going to be a dead-game sport, as O'Brien said you were. You have something to live for. You can start all over again. I wish that I could, but I have cashed my checks all in."
I looked up at her. There was something in her ringing voice that had a revivifying effect upon me. It aroused as the bugle that calls a soldier to arms.
"What have I to live for that you have not?" I asked her.
"You can write," she said. "You have a letter in your pocket addressed to posterity. Deliver it, Nora! Deliver it!"
"Tell me how! O Lolly, tell me how!"
"Get away from this city; go to New York. Cut that man out of your brain as if he were a malignant cancerous growth. Use the knife of a surgeon, and do it yourself. Soldiers have amputated their own legs and arms upon the battle-field. You can do the same."
She had worked herself up to a state of excitement, and she had carried me along with her. We were both standing up now, our flashing eyes meeting. Then I remembered.
"I have no money."
She dipped into her stocking, and brought up a little roll.