er, too, in doing so. But what's
that to Anne? She--"

"Just a second, old chap," broke in Simmy. "You are forgetting that Anne
wants you to be happy."

"God, how happy I could have been with her!"

"See here, will you go down there and see her?" demanded Simmy.

"I can't do that,--I can't do it. Simmy--" he lowered his voice to almost a
whisper,--"I can't trust myself. I don't know what would happen if I were
to see her again,--be near her, alone with her. This longing for her has
become almost unbearable. I thought of her every minute of the time I was
out there at the front--Yes, I had to put the heaviest restraint upon
myself at times to keep from chucking the whole thing and dashing back
here to get her, to take her, to keep her,--maybe to kill her, I don't
know. Now I realise that I was wrong in coming back to America at all. I
should have gone--oh, anywhere else in the world. But here I am, and,
strangely enough, I feel stronger, more able to resist. It was the
distance between us that made it so terrible. I can resist her here, but,
by heaven, I couldn't over there. I could have come all the way back from
France to see her, but I can't go from here down to Washington Square,--so
that shows you how I stand in the matter."

"Now I know the real reason why you came back to little old New York,"
said Simmy sagely, and Thorpe was not offended.

"In the first place I cannot marry her while she still has in her
possession the money for which she sold herself and me," said Thorpe,
musing aloud. "You ought to at least be able to understand that, Simmy? No
matter how much I love her, I can't make her my wife with that accursed
money standing--But there's no use talking about _that_. There is an even
graver reason why I ought not to marry her, an insurmountable reason. I
cannot tell you what it is, but I fear that down in your heart you
suspect."

Simmy leaned forward in his chair. "I think I know, old man," he said
simply. "But even that shouldn't stand in the way. I don't see why you
should have been kind and gentle and merciful to Mr. Thorpe, and refuse to
be the same, in a different way, to her." His face broke into a whimsical
smile. "Anne is what you might call hopelessly afflicted. Dammit all, put
her out of her misery!"

Thorpe stared at him aghast. The utter banality of the remark left him
speechless. For the first time in their acquaintance, he misjudged Simmy
Dodge. He drew back from him, scowling.

"