ung up before I could ask any questions or
get it through my head what she meant by her long, long journey. My brain
wasn't working very lively after what I'd been through over there at the
board meeting anyway and I was too wrapped up in my own troubles to
bother much about hers at the moment, selfish brute that I am.

"But the next morning I understood all right. She had found her way out
and no mistake, just turned on the gas and let herself go. She was dead
when they found her. I don't blame her, Uncle Phil. It was too hard for
her. She couldn't go through with it. Life had been too hard for her from
the beginning. She never had half a chance. And in the end we killed her
between us, her pious old psalm singing hypocrite of a grandfather, the
rotter who ruined her, and myself, the prince of fools.

"I went to see her with the old Doc. And, Uncle Phil, she was beautiful.
Not even Granny looked more peaceful and happy than she did lying there
dead with the little smile on her lips as if she were having a pleasant
dream. But the scar was there on her forehead--the scar I put there. I've
got a scar of my own too. It doesn't show on the surface but it is there
for all that and always will be. I shan't talk about it but I'll never
forget as long as I live that part of the debt she paid was mine. It is
_mea culpa_ for me always so far as she is concerned.

"Her grandfather arrived while I was there. If ever there was a man
broken, mind and body and spirit he was. I couldn't help feeling sorry
for him. Of the two I would much rather have been Madeline lying there
dead than that poor old chap living with her death on his conscience.

"Later I got my official notice from the board. I was fired. I wanted to
get out of college. I'm out for better or worse. Uncle Phil, don't think
I don't care. I know how terribly you are going to be hurt and that it
will be just about the finish of poor old Larry. I am not very proud of
it myself--being catapulted out in disgrace where the rest of you left
trailing clouds of glory. It isn't only what I have done just now. It is
all the things I have done and haven't done before that has smashed me in
the end--my fool attitude of have a good time and damn the expense. I
didn't pay at the time. I am paying now compound interest accumulated.
Worst of it is the rest of you will have to pay with me. You told me once
we couldn't live to ourselves alone. I didn't understand then. I do now.
I am guil