I went up to him then, and laid my hand on his arm. "Peter, you don't
understand. These two gentlemen have been all that is kind to me. I am
happy to know that you are well again. Surely you do not expect me to be
joyful at seeing you. All that pretense was left out of our lives long
before your--illness. It hasn't been all roses for me since then, Peter.
I've worked until I wanted to die with weariness. You know what this
newspaper game is for a woman. It doesn't grow easier as she grows older
and tireder."

"Oh, cut out the melodrama, Dawn," sneered Peter. "Have either of you
fellows the makin's about you? Thanks. I'm famished for a smoke."

The worrying words of ten years ago rose automatically to my lips.
"Aren't you smoking too much, Peter?" The tone was that of a harassed
wife.

Peter stared. Then he laughed his short, mirthless little laugh. "By
Jove! Dawn, I believe you're as much my wife now as you were ten years
ago. I always said, you know, that you would have become a first-class
nagger if you hadn't had such a keen sense of humor. That saved you." He
turned his mocking eyes to Von Gerhard. "Doesn't it beat the devil, how
these good women stick to a man, once they're married! There's a certain
dog-like devotion about it that's touching."

There was a dreadful little silence. For the first time in my knowledge
of him I saw a hot, painful red dyeing Blackie's sallow face. His eyes
had a menace in their depths. Then, very quietly, Von Gerhard stepped
forward and stopped directly before me.

"Dawn," he said, very softly and gently, "I retract my statement of an
hour ago. If you will give me another chance to do as you asked me, I
shall thank God for it all my life. There is no degradation in that. To
live with this man--that is degradation. And I say you shall not suffer
it."

I looked up into his face, and it had never seemed so dear to me. "The
time for that is past," I said, my tone as calm and even as his own. "A
man like you cannot burden himself with a derelict like me--mast gone,
sails gone, water-logged, drifting. Five years from now you'll thank
me for what I am saying now. My place is with this other wreck--tossed
about by wind and weather until we both go down together." There came a
sharp, insistent ring at the door-bell. No answering sound came from the
regions above stairs. The ringing sounded again, louder than before.

"I'll be the Buttons," said Blackie, and disappeared into the hallway