fe. The reminiscence brought an idea,
evidently as deeply moving, into Arnold's mind. The words burst from
him, "I might now be married to Judith!" He put his hands over his
eyes and cast himself down among the pine-needles.

Sylvia spoke quickly lest she lose courage. "Arnold! Arnold! What are
you going to do with yourself now? I'm so horribly anxious about you.
I haven't dared speak before--"

He turned over and lay on his back, staring up into the dark green of
the pine. "I'm going to drink myself to death as soon as I can," he
said very quietly. "The doctors say it won't take long."

She looked at his wasted face and gave a shocked, pitying exclamation,
thinking that it would be illness and not drink which was to come to
his rescue soon.

He looked at her askance, with his bloodshot eyes. "Can you give me
any single reason why I shouldn't?" he challenged her.

Sylvia, the modern, had no answer. She murmured weakly, "Why must any
of us try to be decent?"

"That's for the rest of you," he said. "I'm counted out. The sooner
I get myself out of the way, the better for everybody. That's what
_Judith_ thinks."

The bitterness of his last phrase was savage. Sylvia cried out against
it. "Arnold! That's cruel of you! It's killing Judith!"

"She can't care for me," he said, with a deep, burning resentment.
"She can't ever have cared a rap, or she wouldn't be _able_ to--"

Sylvia would not allow him to go on. "You must not say such a thing,
Arnold. You know Judith's only reason is--she feels if she--if she had
children and they were--"

He interrupted her with an ugly hardness. "Oh, I know what her reason
is, all right. It's the latest fad. Any magazine article can tell you
all about it. And I don't take any stock in it, I tell you. It's just
insanity to try to guess at every last obligation you may possibly
have! You've got to live your life, and have some nerve about it! If
Judith and I love each other, what is it to anybody else if we get
married? Maybe we wouldn't have any children. Maybe they'd be all
right--how could they be anything else with Judith for their mother?
And anyhow, leave that to them! Let them take care of themselves!
We've had to do it for ourselves! What the devil did my father do for
me, I'd like to know, that I should die to keep my children unborn? My
mother was a country girl from up here in the mountains. Since I've
been staying here winters, I've met some of her people. Her aunt told
m