end him any more
if it disturbs you. But that doesn't matter. The only thing that
matters is whether you are going to upset everything in some rash mood
that you may sometime have."

"Do you think I might do that?"

"How do I know what you may do?" he returned. "You threw me into the
discard when your fancy turned to some one else. You followed your own
bent with a certain haste as soon as I was reported dead. I had ceased
to be man enough for you, but my money was still good enough for you.
When I recall those things, I think I can safely say that I haven't
the least idea what you may do next. You aren't faring any too well.
That's plain enough. I have seen men raise Cain out of sheer
devilishness, out of a desperate notion to smash everything because
they were going to smash themselves. Some people seem able to amuse
themselves by watching other people squirm. Maybe you are like that.
You had complete power over me once. I surrendered to that gladly,
then. You appear to have a faculty of making men dance to any tune you
care to play. But all the power you have now, so far as I'm concerned,
is to make me suffer a little more by giving the whole ugly show away.
No, I haven't the least idea what you may do. I don't know you at
all."

"My God, no, you don't," she flung out. "You don't. If you ever had,
we wouldn't be where we are now."

"Probably it's as well," Hollister returned. "Even if you had been
true, you'd have faltered when I came back looking like this."

"And that would have been worse than what I did do," she said,
"wouldn't it?"

"Are you justifying it as an act of mercy to me?" he asked.

Myra shook her head.

"No. I don't feel any great necessity for justifying my actions. No
more than you should feel compelled to justify yours. We have each
only done what normal human beings frequently do when they get torn
loose from the moorings they know and are moved by forces within them
and beyond them, forces which bewilder and dismay them. The war and
your idea of duty, of service, pried us apart. Natural causes--natural
enough when I look back at them--did the rest. We all want to be
happy. We all grab at that when it comes within reach. That's all you
and I have done. We will probably continue doing that the same as
every one else."

"I have it," Hollister said defiantly. "That is why I don't want any
ghosts of the old days haunting me now."

"If you have, you are very fortunate," she murmured. "But