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 and it's a wicked nonsense for human beings to believe it enough to act upon it! Don't you see that Charles understands, and that he's trying to save himself?"

"From what?"

"From agony, Mr. Rennie. From an absolutely useless and futile agony. We'll look at it in a plain way—a matter-of-fact way, if you please—without any romance. He'd got through the worst of it when we came here; he'd no chance but to accept, and he was fairly well resigned to it. He'd been through his rebellion and he knew rebellion was no good. Sometimes you could see a little of it left—in his eyes, or in some impatient thing he said; but he'd nevertheless accepted what he knew was absolute and inevitable. He has it fixed in his mind that the end will be in the autumn; October, he thinks—he's spoken of it several times. Well, he'd made himself almost placid about it. He'd loved life in the natural way most of us love it; but after all he felt he hadn't a great deal to live for. The war had shut his career off short; and for people near his heart he had only some friends—and me." She paused for a moment and her stout shoulders stiffened. "Well, a man can bear to die and leave a sister, Mr. Rennie."