house to his lack of understanding of their boy which had
resulted in Billy's death--with even that, she had salvaged so
much more out of living than he. A great compassion swelled
within her; all the black moments, all the long, gray hours of
their years together, seemed suddenly insignificant. She saw him
again as he had been the day he had proposed marriage to her and
for the first time she was sure that she could interpret the
puzzling look that had come into his eyes when she had asked him
why he thought she could make him happy. What had he understood
about happiness? With a noiseless sob, she remembered that he had
answered her in terms of the only thing he had understood--work.
And she saw him again, too, as he had been the night he had so
bluntly told her of his passion for Rose. It seemed to her now,
free of all rancor, unutterably tragic that the only person
Martin had loved should have come into his life too late.

He was not to be blamed because he had never been able to care
for herself. He should never have asked her to marry him--and
yet, they had not been such bad partners. It would have been so
easy for her to love him. She had loved him until he had killed
her boy; since then, all her old affection had withered. But if
it really had done so why was she so racked now? She felt,
desperately, that she could not let him go until he had had some
real joy. To think that she used to plan, cold-bloodedly, when
Billy was little, all she would do if only Martin should happen
to die! The memory of it smote her as with a blow. She looked
down at the powerful hand lying so passively, almost, she would
have said, contentedly, in her own. How she had yearned for the
comfort of it when her children were born. She wondered if Martin
realized her touch, if it helped a little. If it had annoyed him,