that success was empty without Mary Allen to share it with him. It
was not until dawn that he fell asleep, exhausted, and even then trouble
pursued him in his dreams.

When he awoke, at noon, he tried for a few minutes to imagine that it
was still a very happy, prosperous and promising world; but it was all
in vain. He sat on the edge of his bed, and again thought that if he had
lost to any other than the Judge, it might not have been so distressing.
He got up and looked at his own face in the glass, and hated it for that
peculiar resemblance. It was certain now, after her confession, that all
the time she had believed him to be the Judge and yet, because when with
Mary Allen the Judge's very existence had been forgotten, Jim could not
accuse himself of having fostered her illusion. Honesty would compel her
to admit that. And, on the other hand, thinking it over, he could not
remember that he had ever talked of the road, his business, or
commercial adventure, because it was a rule of his never to "talk shop"
out of hours. He thought she had already experienced too much of that
and she had told him once that she detested chocolates. The only feature
for which he could at all censure himself was for lack of frankness.

"If I hadn't been such a rotten coward, and had told her plainly after
the first afternoon I ever had with her who I was, that I'd forgotten
her name and all, it would never have come to this!" he soliloquized,
and then, an instant later, reversed himself, considered that if he had
been frank he might never have got to love her at all, and--to have
loved her for so long and to have been with her so many times, was worth
more than all else. Could he but have that measure of delight again, and
then die, Death wouldn't be so grim and hopeless as this present pass.
He flattered himself that she could never imagine all his folly of love.
He was grateful to Fate that he had never uttered such avowal and
suffered its inevitable rejection; for now she could always remember him
as a friend. Rejections, he decided, must inevitably leave unpleasant or
harrowing memories. He throttled all his sad eagerness for the farewell
visit and resolutely delayed it until late in the afternoon. He schooled
himself to the determination that there should be no sentimental speech
or action lest she suspect his wounds and perhaps be thereby saddened.
He had come to her with a laugh, he would leave her with a laugh. That
was the brave