upreme in the heavens, he had made
his mundane arrangements for his fishing excursion to Norway. On the
afternoon of the 23rd he paid a farewell call at Wellings Park. Althea,
in the final settlement of their relations, had laid it down as a
definite condition that he should maintain his usual social intercourse
with the family. A few young people were playing tennis. Tea was served
on the lawn near by the court. Althea gave no sign of agitation. She
played her game, laughed with her young men, and took casual leave of
Boyce, wishing him good sport. He drew her a pace aside and murmured:
"God bless you for forgiving me."

She laughed a reply out loud: "Oh, that's all right."

When he told me that, I recalled vividly the picture of her, in my
garden, on the last afternoon of her life, eating the strawberries
which she had brought me for tea. I remembered the little slangy tone
in her voice when she had asked me whether I didn't think life was
rather rotten. That was the tone in which she had said to him, "Oh,
that's all right."

During the early afternoon on the 25th, she rang him up on the
telephone. Chance willed that he should receive the call at first hand.
She must see him before he left Wellingsford. She had something of the
utmost importance to tell him. A matter of life and death. With one
awful thought in his mind, he placed his time at her disposal. For what
romantic, desperate or tragic reason she appointed the night meeting at
the end of the chestnut avenue where the towing-path turns into regions
of desolate quietude, he could not tell. He agreed without argument,
dreading the possible lack of privacy in their talk over the wires.

On that afternoon she came to me, as I have told you, with her
strawberries and her declaration of the rottenness of life.

They met and walked along the towing-path. It was bright moonlight, but
she could not have chosen a lonelier spot, more free from curious eyes
or ears. And then took place a scene which it is beyond my power to
describe. I can only picture it to myself from Boyce's broken,
self-accusing talk. He was going away. She would never see him again
until he returned to marry another woman. She was making her last
frantic bid for happiness. She wept and sobbed and cajoled and
upbraided--You know what women at the end of their tether can do. He
strove to pacify her by the old arguments which hitherto she had
accepted. Suddenly she cried: "If you don't marry me I a