The Fighting Chance

"There is a spiritual strength," said Plank timidly.

"I have never dreamed of denying it," said Siward. "I have tried to find it through the accepted sources--accepted by me, too. God has not helped me in the conventional way or through traditional methods; but that has not inclined me to doubt Him as the tribunal of last resort," he added hastily. "I don't for a moment waver in faith because I am ignorant of the proper manner to approach Him. The Arbiter of all knows that I desire to be decent. He must be aware, too, that all anchors save one have failed to hold me."

"You mean--Miss Landis?"

"Yes. It may be weakness; it may be to my shame that the cables of pride and self-respect, even the spiritual respect for the Highest, cannot hold me when this one anchor holds. All I know is that it holds--so far. It held me at Shotover; it holds me again, now. And the rocks were close abeam, Plank--very close--when she spoke to me over the wires, through the rain, that dark day in March."

He moistened his lips feverishly.

"She said that I might see her. I have waited a long time. I have taken my fighting chance again and I've won out, so far."

He looked up at Plank, curiously embarrassed: "Your body is normal; your intelligence wholesome, balanced, sane; and I want to ask you if you think that perhaps, without understanding how, I have found in her, or through her, in some way, the spiritual source that I think might help me to help myself?"

And, as Plank made no reply: "Or am I talking sentimental cant? Don't answer, if you think that. I can't trust my own mind any more, anyway; and," with an ugly laugh, "I'll know it all some day--the sooner the better!"

"Don't say that!" growled Plank. "You were sane a moment ago."

Siward looked up sharply, but the other silenced him with a gesture.

"Wait! You asked me a perfectly sane question--so wholesome, so normal, that I'm trying to frame an answer worthy of it! I intimated that after the physical, the mental, the ethical phenomena, there remained always the spiritual instinct. Like a wireless current, if a man can establish communication it is well for him, whatever the method. You assented, I think."

"Yes."

"And you ask me if I believe it possible that she can be the medium?"

"Yes."

Plank said deliberately: "Yes, I do think so."

The silence was again broken by Plank: "Siward, you have asked me what I think. Now you must listen to the end. If you believed that through her--her love, marrying her--you stood the best chance in the world to win out, it would be cowardly to ask her to take the risk. As much as I care for you I had rather see you lose the fight than accept such a risk from her. Now you know what I think--but you don't know all. Siward, I say to you that if you are man enough to take her, take her! And I say that of the two risks she is running to-day, the chance she might take with you is infinitely the lesser risk. For with you, if you continue slowly losing your fight, the mental suffering only will be hers. But if she closes this bargain with Quarrier, selling to him her body, the light will go out of her soul for ever."