"Why, boy, that's imagination, nothing else."
"Perhaps," Dave agreed, listlessly. "I'm reading everything on the subject of insanity that I can get hold of."
Ellsworth tried to laugh. "That in itself is enough to unbalance you."
"I'm moody, depressed; I'm getting so I imagine things. By and by I'll begin to think I'm persecuted—I believe that's how it works. Already I have hallucinations in broad daylight, and I'm afraid of the dark. Fancy! I don't sleep very often, and when I do I wake up in a puddle of sweat, shivering. And dreams! God, what dreams! I know they're dreams, now, but sooner or later I suppose I'll begin to believe in 'em." Dave sighed and settled lower in his chair. "I—I'm mighty tired."
Ellsworth clapped him on the back. "Come, now! A perfectly healthy man could wreck his reason this way. You must stop it. You must do something to occupy your mind."
"Sure. That's what brings me home. I'm going to the front."
"To the war?"
"Yes. They're recruiting a rough-rider regiment in San Antone. I joined yesterday, and I've come to get my horse."
After a time Ellsworth said, "Alaire has commenced her action." Dave took a deep, sharp breath and began to tremble weakly. "I didn't tell her, but—you must. We can't go on like this."
"Suppose I just go to war and—and don't come back?" thickly inquired the sufferer.