the table he turned toward the hall. As if by an
afterthought, he called back, "I'm going to be busy for a little while,
Sylvia," and she heard him going up the stairs.

His tone had conveyed a hint that he did not wish to be disturbed, she
thought, but she could not help being uncomfortably curious. What was
there to be done on a Sunday morning that could compare in importance with
the obviously necessary task of helping her to forget the injuries she had
suffered? It was not his way to turn away from her when she needed him.

She could not understand his conduct at all. She was wounded; and then she
began to think more directly, more clearly. Harboro was not putting this
thing away from him. In his way he was facing it. But how?

She noiselessly climbed the stairs and opened the door of their bedroom.

With great exactitude of movement he was cleaning a pistol. He had taken
it apart and just now a cylinder of burnished steel was in his hand.

He frowned when he heard her. "I am sorry you came up, Sylvia," he said.
"I had an idea I'd given you to understand...."

She hurriedly withdrew, closing the door behind her. She felt an
inexplicable elation as she went down the stairs; yet she felt that she
stood face to face with calamity, too. Her man was a fighting man,
then--only he was not a madman. He was the sort of fighter who did not
lose his head. But she could not picture him as a man skilled in the
brutal work of killing. He was too deliberate, too scrupulous, for that
sort of work. And Fectnor was neither deliberate nor scrupulous. He was
the kind of man who would be intently watchful for an advantage, and who
would be elated as he seized that advantage.

... She would persuade Harboro not to go, after all. The thing was not
known. It would never be known. Her searching woman's logic brought to her
the realization that the only way to publish the facts broadcast was for
Harboro to seek a quarrel with Fectnor. He would have to give his
reasons.

But when Harboro came down the stairs she knew instantly that she could
not stop him from going. That quiet look was not unreadable now. It meant
unswerving determination.

He called to her, his hand outstretched; and when she went to him he
kissed her. His voice was gentle and unshaken, in quite the habitual way,
when he said: "_I shall be back in a little while_."

She clasped her hands and looked at him imploringly. "Don't go," she
pleaded.

"Ah, but I must go.