The Fighting Chance

"Very little, Siward."

"How much?"

Plank looked up, hesitated, and shook his head: "One infers from what one hears."

"Infers what?"

"The truth, I suppose," replied Plank simply.

"And what," insisted Siward, "have you inferred that you believe to be the truth? Don't parry, Plank; it isn't easy for me, and I--I never before spoke this way to any man. … It is likely I should have spoken to my mother about it. … I had expected to. It may be weakness--I don't know; but I'd like to talk a little about it to somebody. And there's nobody fit to listen, except you."

"If you feel that way," said Plank slowly, "I will be very glad to listen."

"I feel that way. I've been through--some things; I've been pretty sick, Plank. It tires a man out; a man's head and shoulders get tired. Oh, I don't mean the usual reaction from self-contempt, disgust--the dreadful, aching sadness of it all which lasts even while desire, stunned for the moment, wakens into craving. I don't mean that. It is something else--a deathly, mental solitude that terrifies. I tell you, no man except a man smitten by my malady knows what solitude can be! … There! I didn't mean to be theatrical; I had no intention of--"

"Go on," cut in Plank heavily.

"Go on! … Yes, I want to. You know what a pillow is to a tired man's shoulders. I want to use your sane intelligence to rest on a moment. It's my brain that's tired, Plank."

Although everybody had cynically used Plank, nobody had ever before found him a necessity.

"Go on," he said unsteadily. "If I can be of use to you, Siward, in God's name let me be, for I have never been necessary to anybody in all my life."

Siward rested his head on one clinched hand: "How much chance do you think I have?" he asked wearily.

"Chance to get well?"

"Yes."

Plank considered for a moment, then: "You are not trying, Siward."

"I have been trying since--since March."

"Since March?"

"Yes."

Plank looked at him curiously: "What happened in March?"

"Had I better tell you?"

"You know better than I."

Siward, cheek crushed against his fist, his elbow on the desk, gazed at him steadily: "In March," he said, "Miss Landis spoke to me. I've made a better fight since."

Plank's serious face darkened. "Is she the only anchor you have?"

"Plank, I am not even sure of her. I have made a better fight since then; that is all I dare say. I know what men think about a man like me; I knew they demand character, pride, self-denial. But, Plank, I am driving faster and faster toward the breakers, and these anchors are dragging. For it is not, in my case, the physical failure to obey the will; it is the will itself that has been attacked from the first. That is the horror of it. And what is there behind the will-power to strengthen it? Only the source of will-power--the mind. It is the mind that cannot help me. What am I to do?"