ave you
felt the smallest twinge of remorse for Blanche Stroeve's death?"

I watched his face for some change of expression, but it
remained impassive.

"Why should I?" he asked.

"Let me put the facts before you. You were dying, and Dirk
Stroeve took you into his own house. He nursed you like a mother.
He sacrificed his time and his comfort and his money for you.
He snatched you from the jaws of death."

Strickland shrugged his shoulders.

"The absurd little man enjoys doing things for other people.
That's his life."

"Granting that you owed him no gratitude, were you obliged to
go out of your way to take his wife from him? Until you came
on the scene they were happy. Why couldn't you leave them alone?"

"What makes you think they were happy?"

"It was evident."

"You are a discerning fellow. Do you think she could ever
have forgiven him for what he did for her?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't you know why he married her?"

I shook my head.

"She was a governess in the family of some Roman prince, and
the son of the house seduced her. She thought he was going to
marry her. They turned her out into the street neck and crop.
She was going to have a baby, and she tried to commit suicide.
Stroeve found her and married her."

"It was just like him. I never knew anyone with so
compassionate a heart."

I had often wondered why that ill-assorted pair had married,
but just that explanation had never occurred to me. That was
perhaps the cause of the peculiar quality of Dirk's love for
his wife. I had noticed in it something more than passion.
I remembered also how I had always fancied that her reserve
concealed I knew not what; but now I saw in it more than the
desire to hide a shameful secret. Her tranquillity was like
the sullen calm that broods over an island which has been
swept by a hurricane. Her cheerfulness was the cheerfulness
of despair. Strickland interrupted my reflections with an
observation the profound cynicism of which startled me.

"A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her," he said,
"but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on
her account."

"It must be reassuring to you to know that you certainly run
no risk of incurring the resentment of the women you come in
contact with," I retorted.

A slight smile broke on his lips.

"You are always prepared to sacrifice your principles for a
repartee," he answered.

"What happened to the child?