"Entirely so," he said calmly. "I even thought that I might win, Mark.
But then I had so much and you so little chance, I went away to forget.
Weston knew that. He knew, too, that there was no Edith Parker."

"And what has Edith Parker to do with all this?" I asked more gently,
for he was breaking down my barriers.

"She might have done much for you had I not come back when Weston was
shot. Couldn't you see, Mark, how angry Mary was with me for
forgetting her? But Weston knew it. And that night--that minute--I
only wanted to explain to Mary, and she saw it all, Mark, and I saw it
all--and we forgot. Then she told me of you."

"She told you rather late," said I.

"But she would have kept her promise. Couldn't you forgive her, Mark,
for that one moment of forgetting? It was just one moment, and I left
her then forever. We thought you'd never know."

"And thinking that, you came whistling down the road that night," I
sneered. "You came whistling like a man mightily pleased with his
conquest--or, perhaps you sang so gayly from sheer joy in your own
goodness. It seems to me at times like that a man would----"

"A man would whistle a bit for courage," Tim interrupted. "Couldn't he
do that, Mark? Couldn't he go away with his head up and face set, or
must he totter along and wail simply because he is doing a fair thing
that any man would do?"

"Why, in Heaven's name, couldn't you keep her for yourself?" I cried,