Esteban Varona made slow progress toward recovery. In the weeks following O'Reilly's departure from Cubitas his gain was steady, but beyond a certain point he seemed unable to go. Then he began to lose strength. Norine was the first to realize the truth, but it was some time before she would acknowledge it, even to herself. At last, however, she had to face the fact that Esteban's months of prison fare, the abuse, the neglect he had suffered in Spanish hands, had left him little more than a living corpse¹. It seemed as if fever had burned him out, or else some dregs of disease still lingered in his system and had all but quenched² that elusive³ spark which for want of a better name we call vitality⁴.  
Esteban, too, awoke to the fact that he was losing ground, and his dismay was keen, for a wonderful thing had come into his life and he spent much of his time in delicious contemplative day dreams concerning it, waiting for the hour when he would dare translate those dreams into realities. It seemed to him that he had always loved Norine; certainly she had enshrined herself in his heart long before his mind had regained⁵ its clarity, for he had come out of his delirious⁶ wanderings with his love full grown. There had been no conscious beginning to it; he had emerged from darkness into dazzling glory, all in an instant. Not until he found himself slipping backward did he attempt to set a guard upon himself, for up to that hour he had never questioned his right to love. He found his new task heavy, almost too much for him to bear. That he attempted it spoke⁷ well for the fellow's strength of character.
 
The time came finally when he could no longer permit the girl to deceive herself or him with her brave assumption of cheerfulness. Norine had just told him that he was doing famously, but he smiled and shook his weary head.
 
"Let's be honest," he said. "You know and I know that I can't get well."
 
Norine was engaged in straightening up the interior of the bark hut in which her patient was installed; she ceased her labors⁸ to inquire with lifted brows:
 
"Tut! Tut! Pray what do you mean by that?"
 
"There's something desperately⁹ wrong with me and I realized it long ago. So did you, but your good heart wouldn't let you—"
 
Norine crossed quickly to the hammock and laid her cool hand upon the sick man's forehead.
 
"You mustn't be discouraged," she told him, earnestly. "Remember this is a trying climate and we have nothing to do with. Even the food is wretched."
 
Esteban's smile became wistful. "That isn't why my fever lasts. If there were any life, any health left in me you would rekindle¹⁰ it. No, there's something desperately wrong, and—we're wasting time."
 
"You simply MUSTN'T talk like this," she cried. Then at the look in his eyes she faltered¹¹ for the briefest instant. "You'll—undo all that we've done. Oh, if I had you where I could take proper care of you! If we were anywhere but here you'd see."
 
"I—believe you. But unfortunately we are not elsewhere."
 
"I'm going to take you away," she exclaimed, forcefully.
 
Esteban stroked her hand softly. "You can't do that, Miss Evans. You have been wonderful to me and I can't begin to express my gratitude—" Norine stirred, but he retained his grasp of her fingers, gaining courage from the contact to proceed. "I have been trying for a long time to tell you something. Will you listen?"
 
Norine possessed¹² a dominant¹³ personality; she had a knack¹⁴ of tactfully controlling and directing situations, but of a sudden she experienced a panic-stricken nutter¹⁵ and she lost her air of easy confidence.
 
"Not now," she exclaimed, with a visible lessening¹⁶ of color. "Don't bother to tell me now."
 
"I've waited too long; I must speak."
 
Norine was amazed at her own confusion, which was nothing less than girlish; she had actually gone to pieces at threat of something she had long expected to hear.
 
"I know how tired of this work you have become," the man was saying. "I know you're eager to get back to your own work and your own life."
 
"Well?"
 
"You have stayed on here just to nurse me. Isn't that true?"
 
She nodded somewhat doubtfully.
 
"Now then, you must stop thinking about me and—make your arrangements to go home."
 
Norine eyed the speaker queerly. "Is THAT what you have been trying so long to tell me?" she inquired.
 
"Yes."
 
"Is that—all?"
 
There was a moment of silence. "Yes. You see, I know how tired you are of this misery¹⁷, this poverty, this hopeless struggle. You're not a Cuban and our cause isn't yours. Expeditions come from the United States every now and then and the Government will see that you are put safely aboard the first ship that returns. I'll manage to get well somehow."
 
Norine's color had returned. She stood over the hammock, looking down mistily¹⁸. "Don't you need me, want me any more?" she inquired.
 
Esteban turned his tired eyes away, fearing to betray in them his utter wretchedness. "You have done all there is to do. I want you to go back into your own world and forget—"
 
A sudden impulse seized the girl. She stopped and gathered the sick man into her young, strong arms. "Don't be silly," she cried. "My world is your world, Esteban dear. I'll never, never leave you."
 
"Miss Evans! NORINE!" Varona tried feebly to free himself. "You mustn't—"
 
Norine was laughing through her tears. "If you won't speak, I suppose I must, but it is very embarrassing. Don't you suppose I know exactly how much you love me? Why, you've told me a thousand times—"
 
"Please! PLEASE!" he cried in a shaking voice. "This is wrong. I won't let you—you, a girl with everything—"
 
"Hush¹⁹!" She drew him closer. "You're going to tell me that you have nothing, can offer me nothing. You're going to do the generous, noble thing. Well! I hate generous people. I'm selfish, utterly²⁰ selfish and spoiled, and I don't propose to be robbed of anything I want, least of all my happiness. You do love me, don't you?"
 
Esteban's cry was eloquent²¹; he clasped his arms about her and she held him fiercely to her breast.
 
"Well, then, why don't you tell me so? I—I can't keep on proposing. It isn't ladylike."
 
"We're quite mad, quite insane," he told her after a while. "This only makes it harder to give you up."
 
"You're not going to give me up and you're not going to die. I sha'n't let you. Think what you have to live for."
 
"I—did wrong to surrender."
 
"It was I who surrendered. Come! Must I say it all? Aren't you going to ask me—"
 
"What?"
 
"Why, to marry you, of course."
 
Esteban gasped²²; he looked deeply into Norine's eyes, then he closed his own. He shook his head. "Not that," he whispered. "Oh, not that!"
 
"We're going to be married, and I'm going to take you out of this miserable²³ place."
 
"What happiness!" he murmured. "If I were well—But I won't let you marry a dying man."
 
Norine rose, her face aglow²⁵ with new strength, new determination. She dried her eyes and readjusted her hair with deft²⁶, unconscious touch, smiling down, meanwhile, at the man. "I brought you back when you were all but gone. I saved you after the others had given you up, and now you are mine to do with as I please. You belong to me and I sha'n't consult you—" She turned, for a figure had darkened the door; it was one of her English-speaking convalescents who was acting²⁷ as a sort of orderly.
 
"Senorita," the man said, with a flash of white teeth, "we have another sick man, and you'd never guess who. It is that American, El Demonio—"
 
"Mr. Branch?"
 
"Si! The very same. He has just come from the front."
 
"Is he sick or wounded?" Esteban inquired.
 
"Shot, by a Spanish bullet. He asked at once for our senorita."
 
"Of course. I'll come in an instant." When the messenger had gone Norine bent²⁸ and pressed her lips to Esteban's. "Remember, you're mine to do with as I please," she said; then she fled down the grassy²⁹ street.
 
Branch was waiting at Norine's quarters, a soiled figure of dejection. His left arm lay in a sling³⁰ across his breast. He looked up at her approach, but she scarcely recognized him, so greatly changed was he.
 
Leslie had filled out. There was a healthy color beneath his deep tan, his flesh was firm, his eyes clear and bright.
 
"Hello, Norine!" he cried. "Well, they got me."
 
Norine paused in astonishment³¹. "'Way, LESLIE! I was so frightened!
But—you can't be badly hurt."
"Bad enough so that Lopez sent me in. A fellow gets flyblown if he stays in the field, so I beat it."
 
"Has your arm been dressed?"
 
"No. I wouldn't let these rough-and-tumble doctors touch it. They'd amputate at the shoulder for a hang-nail. I don't trust 'em."
 
"Then I'll look at it."
 
But Leslie shrugged³². "Oh, it's feeling fine, right now! I'd rather leave it alone. I just wanted to see you—"
 
"You mustn't neglect it; there's danger of—"
 
"Gee³³! You're looking great," he interrupted. "It's better than a banquet just to look at you."
 
"And YOU!" Norine scanned the invalid³⁴ appraisingly³⁵. "Why, you're another man!"
 
"Sure! Listen to this." He thumped³⁶ his chest. "Best pair of bellows³⁷ in
Cuba. The open air did it."
"What a pity you were hurt just at such a time. But you would take insane risks. Now then, let's have a look at your wound." She pushed him, protesting, into her cabin.
 
"It doesn't hurt, really," he declared. "It's only a scratch."
 
"Of course you'd say so. Sit down."
 
"Please don't bother. If you don't mind—"
 
"But I do mind. If you won't trust me I'll run for a doctor."
 
"I tell you I can't stand 'em. They'll probe around and give a fellow gangrene."
 
"Then behave yourself." Norine forced the patient into a chair and withdrew his arm from the sling. Then, despite his weak resistance, she deftly³⁸ removed the bandage. From his expression she felt sure that she must be hurting him, but when the injury was exposed she looked up in wonderment.
 
"Leslie!" she exclaimed. "What in the world—"
 
"Well! You insisted on seeing it," he grumbled³⁹. "I told you it wasn't much." He tried to meet her eyes, but failed.
 
There was a moment's pause, then Norine inquired, curiously⁴⁰: "What is the trouble? You'd better 'fess up."
 
Branch struggled with himself, he swallowed hard, then said: "I'm—going to. You can see now why I didn't go to a doctor: I did it—shot myself. You won't give me away?"
 
"Why—I don't understand."
 
"Oh, I'm in trouble. I simply had to get away, and this was all I could think of. I wanted to blow a real hole through myself and I tried three times. But I missed myself."
 
"Missed yourself? How? Why?"
 
Branch wiped the sweat from his face. "I flinched⁴¹—shut my eyes and pulled the trigger."
 
Norine seated herself weakly; she stared in bewilderment at the unhappy speaker. "Afraid? You, El Demonio! Why, you aren't afraid of anything!"
 
"Say! You don't believe all that stuff, do you? I'm afraid of my shadow and always have been. I'm not brave and never was. They told me I was going to die and it scared me so that I tried to end things quickly. I couldn't bear to die slowly, to KNOW that I was dying by inches. But, Lord! It scared me even worse to go into battle. I was blind with fright all the time and I never got over it. Why, the sight of a gun gives me a chill, and I jump every time one goes off. God! how I've suffered! I went crazy at our first engagement—crazy with fear. I didn't know where I was, or what happened, or anything. Afterward⁴², when they hailed me as a hero, I thought they were kidding, that everybody must know how frightened I was. After a time I saw that I'd fooled them, and that shamed me. Then—I had to keep it up or become ridiculous. But it nearly killed me."
 
"If you're speaking the truth, I'm not sure you're such a coward as you make out," Norine said.
 
"Oh yes, I am. Wait! Before I knew it I had a reputation. Then I had to live up to it." The speaker groaned⁴³. "It wasn't so bad as long as I felt sure I was going to die, anyhow, but when I discovered I was getting well—" Branch raised a pair of tragic⁴⁴ eyes, his tone changed. "I'll tell you what cured me. I SCARED myself well! Those bugs⁴⁵ in my lungs died from suffocation

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