r helplessness. There was no response in it
beyond a nervous quivering that struck through her fingers to her heart.

He went on. "It's not as if _he_ had been happy. He wasn't. Couldn't
have been."

She fell to stroking gently that hand under her own. Its nervous
quivering ceased.

"You know that funny way he had--the way he used to go poppin' in and
out as if he was lookin' for somebody? That's what I can't bear to think
of. Like as if he'd wanted something badly and wouldn't let on to
anybody about it. Nobody knew what was going on inside him all these
years. That's the horrible thing. We ought to have known and we didn't.
There he was, poppin' in and out, and he might have been a mile off for
all we could get at him. We didn't know anything about him--not reelly."

He mused.

"That's it. We don't know anything about anybody--ever. I didn't know
anything about Virelet--don't know now. I never shall know. Come to
that, I don't know anything about you. Nor you about me--reelly."

"Oh, Ranny," she whispered. It was her one protest against the agony he
was making her share with him.

"What do we know about anything? What does it all mean? The whole
bloomin' show? The Combined Maze? They shove us into it without our
leave. They make us do things we don't want to do and never meant to do.
I didn't want to care for Virelet. I wanted to care for you. I didn't
want to marry her, nor she me. I didn't mean to. I meant to marry you.
But I did care for her, and I did marry her. I don't suppose _he_ wanted
to do like he did or ever meant to. And look how he was treated--shoved
in--livin' his horrible little life down there--doin' the things he
didn't mean--lookin' for things he never got--and then shunted like
this, all anyhow, God knows where--before he could put a hand on
anything. There's no sense in it.

"I wouldn't mind so much if I'd only cared for him. But I didn't. I
wanted to--I meant to--but I didn't. There you are again. It's all like
that and there's no sense in it."

"But you _did_ care, Ran, dear. You're caring now. You couldn't talk
like this about him if you didn't care."

"No. I'm talkin' like this--because I didn't care. Not a rap. My God! If
I thought Stanny would ever feel to me as I felt to my father, I'd go
and kill myself."

"But he won't, dear. You haven't behaved to him like your father behaved
to you," said Winny, calmly.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. At any rate, you will