r have dared to intend.

"It might; but it does not. We both know it, and there is no harm in our
talking it over. Lorimer is weak and foolish; he isn't nearly so bad as
many men we know. The taint is in his blood, and he is too easy-going to
fight it out."

"But he did fight, last summer," Arlt urged.

Thayer's thoughts flew backwards to one night, in Lorimer's room at the
hotel. It seemed to him he could still see Lorimer's flushed face, still
hear against the background of noises that marred the stillness of the
August moonlight outside the window, the high-pitched, insistent voice
of the man who sat on the edge of the bed, arguing about the necessity
of unlacing his shoes before taking them off. The next morning, Beatrix
had received a note from Thayer, apologizing for carrying Lorimer off
for a day's fishing. Cotton Mather himself might well have envied the
grim fervor of the sermon preached by his namesake, that sunshiny summer
day. The old-time hell gave place to a more modern theory of
retribution; but the terrors were painted with a black-tipped brush, and
Lorimer had shuddered, as he listened. For the once, Thayer had made no
effort to avoid rousing his antagonism. Lorimer had been more angry than
ever before in his life; then the inevitable reaction had come, and it
had been a penitent, hopeful sinner who had walked up the pier at
Thayer's side, late in the afternoon. But Arlt, who had been playing
Chopin at Monomoy, all the previous evening, was quite at a loss to
understand how a single day's fishing could so completely exhaust a
strong man like Thayer.

Arlt changed his phrase to the direct question.

"Don't you think he fought with the best that was in him?"

And Thayer assented with perfect truthfulness,--

"I do."

"Then we ought to ask for nothing more."

"If he stood alone. Unfortunately he doesn't."

Arlt raised his brows.

"But the risk is hers."

Thayer untied his necktie with a long, deliberate pull, and made a
second attempt to arrange it to his liking. At length he turned from the
mirror and faced Arlt.

"Would you be willing to allow Katarina to take such a risk?"

"No," Arlt answered honestly, after an interval.

Neither man spoke for some time. Arlt was unwilling to continue the
subject, and Thayer knew from experience the uselessness of trying to
force him to talk when he was minded to keep silence. It was Arlt,
however, who finally broke the silence, and his subject was o