Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/95

 the barred door shut behind him and the locks from end to end of the tier fell into place—another leaden day was at an end.

Those hours of night! Varge fought it slowly out—and slowly his splendid mental constitution rallied—steadily the fine reason, the equipoise of the man gained strength; and turbulence of spirit, if not dissipated, was subjected.

At times, even in his bitterest moments, he had been conscious of what had seemed an unmanly inconsistency in his rebellion against that to which he himself, of his own free will, had elected to submit; and this, indeed, had been a powerful factor in his process of reconstruction. It had seemed a small, weak part to play that he should turn his face away and refuse to drink the cup he had so confidently volunteered to take because he found the first taste more bitter than he had thought. Then, by degrees, he had understood. It was not inconsistency—only that he was human, with human limitations, with human endurance—and heart and soul and brain had reeled and staggered before that which, momentarily, had been beyond his strength to support, that had turned his mind sick and robbed it of its sane virility. He had expected death, no other thing but that—and death he had been prepared to meet, he hoped calmly, bravely, patiently—but this was worse than death. Not that it would have altered his decision had he known this thing was before him, not that it would have held him back—that thought never came to him—but this was worse than death. For those around him, for even that weak, sickly, hollow-cheeked man of sixty years in the next cell, who coughed at nights, there was