must be a way. Doctors claim to know pretty nearly everything; there must be something to do."

"But there isn't," he retorted gloomily. "I don't know any more than you what that thing is, but it's beyond your doctors. I've got to fight it out alone."

"Nick--" Her voice was suddenly tense. "Are you sure it isn't some kind of madness? Something tangible like that could perhaps be treated."

"It's no kind your doctors can treat, Pat. Did you ever hear of a madman who stood aside and rationally watched the working of his own insanity? And that's what I'm forced to do. And yet--this other isn't insane either. Were its actions insane?"

Pat shuddered. "I--don't know," she said in low tones. "I guess not."

"No. Horrible, cruel, bestial, devilishly cunning, evil--but not insane. I don't know what it is, Pat. I know that the fight has to be made by me alone. There's nothing, nobody in the world, that can help."

"Nick!" she wailed.

"I'm sorry, Pat dear. You understand now why I was so reluctant to fall in love with you. I was afraid to love you; now I know I was right."

"Nick!" she cried, then paused hopelessly. After a moment she continued, "Yesterday I was determined to forget you, and now--now I don't care if this whole tale of yours is a mesh of fantastic lies, I love you! I'd love you even if your real self were that--that other creature, and even if I knew that this was just a trap. I'd love you anyway."

"Pat," he said seriously, "don't you believe me? Why should I offer to give you up if this were--what you said? Wouldn't I be pleading for another chance, making promises, finding excuses?"

"Oh, I believe you, Nick! It isn't that; I was just thinking how strange it is that I could hate you so two nights past and love you so tonight."

"Oh God, Pat! Even you can't know how much I love you; and to win you and then be forced to give you up--" He groaned.

The girl reached out her hand and covered his; it was the first time during the evening that she had touched him, and the feel of his flesh sent a tingle through her. She was miserably distraught.

"Honey," she murmured brokenly. "Nick, Honey."

He 

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