"If we poor creatures must fight," said Lenore, and she meant this for a prayer, "let the women fight eternally against violence, and let the men forever fight their destructive instincts!"
From that hour the condition of Kurt Dorn changed for the better. Doctor Lowell admitted that Lenore had been the one medicine which might defeat the death that all except she had believed inevitable.
Lenore was permitted to see him a few minutes every day, for which fleeting interval she must endure the endless hours. But she discovered that only when he was rational and free from pain would they let her go in. What Dorn's condition was all the rest of the time she could not guess. But she began to get inklings that it was very bad.
"Dad, I'm going to insist on staying with Kurt as—as long as I want," asserted Lenore, when she had made up her mind.
This worried Anderson, and he appeared at a loss for words.
"I told Kurt I'd marry him the very day he could sit up," continued Lenore.
"By George! that accounts," exclaimed her father. "He's been tryin' to sit up, an' we've had hell with him."
"Dad, he will get well. And all the sooner if I can be with him more. He loves me. I feel I'm the only thing that counteracts—the—the madness in his mind—the death in his soul."
Anderson made one of his violent gestures. "I believe you. That hits me with a bang. It takes a woman!… Lenore, what's your idea?"