life away, and
precious few to save it.) She backed up against a tree and stretched her
arms out like this"--Havelock made a clumsy stage-gesture of aversion
from Chantry, the villain. "And for an instant he thought she was afraid
of a Jersey cow that had come up to take part in the discussion. So he
threw a twig at its nose."

IV

Chantry's wonder grew, swelled, and burst.

"Do you mean to say that that safety-deposit vault of a Ferguson told
you all this?"

"As I am telling it to you. Only much more detail, of course--and much,
much faster. It wasn't like a story at all: it was like--like a
hemorrhage. I didn't interrupt him as you've been interrupting me. Well,
the upshot of it was that she spurned him quite in the grand manner. She
found the opposites of all the nice things she had been saying for six
months, and said them. And Ferguson--your cocky Ferguson--stood and
listened, until she had talked herself out, and then went away. He never
saw her again; and when he sent for me, he had made up his mind that
she never intended to take any of it back. So he stepped out, I tell
you."

"As hard hit as that," Chantry mused.

"Just as hard hit as that. Ferguson had had no previous affairs; she was
very literally the one woman; and he managed, at forty, to combine the
illusions of the boy of twenty and the man of sixty."

"But if he thought he was so precious to the world, wasn't it more than
ever his duty to preserve his existence? He could see other people die
in his place, but he couldn't see himself bucking up against a broken
heart. Isn't that what the strong man does? Lives out his life when he
doesn't at all like the look of it? Say what you like, he was a coward,
Havelock--at the last, anyhow."

"I won't ask for your opinion just yet, thank you. Perhaps if Ferguson
had been sure he would ever do good work again, he wouldn't have taken
himself off. That might have held him. He might have stuck by on the
chance. But I doubt it. Don't you see? He loved the girl too much."

"Thought he couldn't live without her," snorted Chantry.

"Oh, no--not that. But if she was right, he was the meanest skunk alive.
He owed the world at least two deaths, so to speak. The only approach
you can make to dying twice is to die in your prime, of your own
volition." Havelock spoke very slowly. "At least, that's the way I've
worked it out. He didn't say so. He was careful as a cat."

"You think"--Chantry leaned forward, very