-morrow morning, by the way; I'm to take you out in the
motorlaunch and break it to you." He dropped her hands and stood up.
"Good God! How can I go and leave you here with him?"

"You've done it often."

"Yes; but each time it's more damnable. And then I've always had a
hope--"

She rose also. "Give it up! Give it up!"

"You've none, then, yourself?"

She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her.

"None--none?" he insisted.

He had to bend his head to hear her answer. "Only one!"

"What, my dearest? What?"

"Don't touch me! That he may die!"

They drew apart again, hearing each other's quick breathing through the
darkness.

"You wish that too?" he said.

"I wish it always--every day, every hour, every moment!" She paused, and
then let the words break from her. "You'd better know it; you'd better
know the worst of me. I'm not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is
poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him
dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes
back I say to myself: 'Are you here again?' When I hear of people being
killed in accidents, I think: 'Why wasn't he there?' When I read the
death-notices in the paper I say: 'So-and-so was just his age.' When
I see him taking such care of his health and his diet--as he does, you
know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much--when
I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and
weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn't
gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw
their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: 'What can
kill a man who thinks only of himself?' And night after night I keep
myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he's dead. When I
dream that, and wake and find him there it's worse than ever--"

She broke off with a sob, and the loud lapping of the water under the
floor was like the beat of a rebellious heart.

"There, you know the truth!" she said.

He answered after a pause: "People do die."

"Do they?" She laughed. "Yes--in happy marriages!"

They were silent again, and Isabel turned, feeling her way toward the
door. As she did so, the profound stillness was broken by the sound of a
man's voice trolling out unsteadily the refrain of a music-hall song.

The two in the boat-house darted toward each other with a simultaneous
movement, clutching hands as th