came like a gift straight from the God
whom he denied. Love came, and Grayson's
ideals of love, as of everything
else, were morbid and quixotic. He
believed that he owed it to the woman
he should marry never to have loved
another. He had loved but one woman,
he said, and he should love but one.
I believed him then literally when he
said that his love for the Kentucky
girl was his religion now--the only
anchor left him in his sea of troubles,
the only star that gave him guiding
light. Without this love, what
then?

I had a strong impulse to ask him,
but Grayson shivered, as though he
divined my thought, and, in some
relentless way, our talk drifted to the
question of suicide. I was not surprised
that he rather defended it. Neither of
us said anything new, only I did not
like the way he talked. He was too
deliberate, too serious, as though he
were really facing a possible fact. He
had no religious scruples, he said, no
family ties; he had nothing to do with
bringing himself into life; why--if it
was not worth living, not bearable--