ut, too, because I'm one of the
sneakingest cowards on earth. What do you think of me, Simmy? What does
everybody think of me? Wouldn't call me a brave man, would you?"

"The cases are not parallel. Braden's case is different. He couldn't force
Anne to--"

"See here, Simmy," broke in George, wonderingly, "I hadn't noticed it
before, but, by giminy, I believe you're tipsy. You've been drinking,
Simmy. No sober man would talk as you do. When you sober up, you'll think
just as I do,--and that is that Brady Thorpe ought to have been a man when
he had the chance. He ought to have stuck his fist under Anne's nose and
said 'Come on, or I'll smash you,' and she'd have gone with him like a
little lamb, and she'd have loved him a hundred times more than she ever
loved him before. He didn't do the right thing by her, Simmy. He didn't,
curse him, and I'll never forgive him. I'm going to wring his neck, so
help me Moses. I've been a coward just as long as I intend to be. Take a
good look at me, Simmy. If you watch closely you may see me turning into a
man."

"Get in," said Simmy, pushing him toward the door of the taxi-cab. "A
little sleep is what you need."

"And say, there's another thing I've got to square up with Brady Thorpe,"
protested George, holding back. "He took Lutie up there to that beastly
hospital and slashed her open, curse him. A poor, helpless little girl
like that! Call that brave? Sticking a knife into Lutie? He's got to
settle with me for that, too."

And then Simmy understood.

CHAPTER X

Much may happen in a year's time. The history of the few people involved
in the making of this narrative presents but few new aspects, and yet
there is now to be disclosed an unerring indication of great and perhaps
enduring changes in the lives of every one concerned.

To begin with, Templeton Thorpe, at the age of seventy-eight, is lying at
the edge of his grave. On the day of his marriage with Anne Tresslyn, he
put down his arms in the long and hopeless conflict with an enemy that
knows no pity, a foe so supremely confident that man has been powerless to
do more than devise a means to temporarily check its relentless fury. The
thing in Mr. Thorpe's side was demanding the tolls of victory. There was
no curbing its wrath: neither the soft nor the harsh answer of science had
served to turn it away. The hand with the gleaming, keen-edged knife had
been offered against it again and again, but the stroke had never