"Not to me," replied Blake, setting his jaw. "I've started in on this fight, and I'm going through with it the way I began. It'll be a big help to know how you feel now; but, just the same, I'm going to fight it out alone. The doctors may say what they please,—if I haven't will power enough to win, without being propped up, I'm not fit to marry any woman, much less you!"
"Tom!" she cried. "You are the man I thought you. You will win!"
She held out her hands to him. He took them in his big palms, and bent over to kiss her on the forehead.
"There!" he said, stepping away. "That's a lot more than I'm entitled to now, Jenny. It's time I left, to go and try to earn it."
"You won't allow me to help?" she begged.
"No," he answered, with a quiet firmness that she knew could not be shaken.
"At least you cannot keep me from praying for you," she said.
"That's true; and it will be a help to know how you feel about it now," he admitted.
"You will come again—soon?"
"No, not until I begin to see my way out on the Zariba Dam."