elp in any way I could. But
you haven't let me. You quit fighting when things got difficult, and put
in all your money and energy on liquor and horses and cards. I could
stand being married to a drunkard, Dave, but not to a coward ..."

So she was trying to show him. But Miller told himself he'd show her
instead. Coward, eh? Maybe this would teach her a lesson! Hell of a lot
of help she'd been! Nag at him every time he took a drink. Holler bloody
murder when he put twenty-five bucks on a horse, with a chance to make
five hundred. What man wouldn't do those things?

His drug store was on the skids. Could he be blamed for drinking a
little too much, if alcohol dissolved the morbid vapors of his mind?

Miller stiffened angrily, and tightened his finger on the trigger. But
he had one moment of frank insight just before the hammer dropped and
brought the world tumbling about his ears. It brought with it a
realization that the whole thing was his fault. Helen was right--he was
a coward. There was a poignant ache in his heart. She'd been as loyal as
they came, he knew that.

He could have spent his nights thinking up new business tricks, instead
of swilling whiskey. Could have gone out of his way to be pleasant to
customers, not snap at them when he had a terrific hangover. And even
Miller knew nobody ever made any money on the horses--at least, not when
he needed it. But horses and whiskey and business had become tragically
confused in his mind; so here he was, full of liquor and madness, with a
gun to his head.

Then again anger swept his mind clean of reason, and he threw his chin
up and gripped the gun tight.

"Run out on me, will she!" he muttered thickly. "Well--this'll show
her!"

In the next moment the hammer fell ... and Dave Miller had "shown her."

Miller opened his eyes with a start. As plain as black on white, he'd
heard a bell ring--the most familiar sound in the world, too. It was the
unmistakable tinkle of his cash register.

"Now, how in hell--" The thought began in his mind; and then he saw
where he was.

The cash register was right in front of him! It was open, and on the
marble slab lay a customer's five-spot. Miller's glance strayed up and
around him.

He was behind the drug counter, all right. There were a man and a girl
sipping cokes at the fountain, to his right; the magazine racks by the
open door; the tobacco counter across from the fountain. And right
before him was a customer.

Good