ike a murderer with his victim when I've been alone with Stoller.
When I could get away from him I could shake it off, and even believe
that it hadn't happened. You can't think what a nightmare it's been!
Well, I've ruined Stoller politically, but I've ruined myself, too.
I've spoiled my own life; I've done what I can never explain to--to the
people I want to have believe in me; I've got to steal away like the
thief I am. Good-by!" He jumped to his feet, and put out his hand to
March, and then to Mrs. March.

"Why, you're not going away now!" she cried, in a daze.

"Yes, I am. I shall leave Carlsbad on the eleven-o'clock train. I don't
think I shall see you again." He clung to her hand. "If you see General
Triscoe--I wish you'd tell them I couldn't--that I had to--that I was
called away suddenly--Good-by!" He pressed her hand and dropped it, and
mixed with the crowd. Then he came suddenly back, with a final appeal to
March: "Should you--do you think I ought to see Stoller, and--and tell
him I don't think I used him fairly?"

"You ought to know--" March began.

But before he could say more, Burnamy said, "You're right," and was off
again.

"Oh, how hard you were with him, my dear!" Mrs. March lamented.

"I wish," he said, "if our boy ever went wrong that some one would be as
true to him as I was to that poor fellow. He condemned himself; and he
was right; he has behaved very badly."

"You always overdo things so, when you act righteously!"

"Now, Isabel!"

"Oh, yes, I know what you will say. But I should have tempered justice
with mercy."

Her nerves tingled with pity for Burnamy, but in her heart she was glad
that her husband had had strength to side with him against himself, and
she was proud of the forbearance with which he had done it. In their
earlier married life she would have confidently taken the initiative on
all moral questions. She still believed that she was better fitted for
their decision by her Puritan tradition and her New England birth, but
once in a great crisis when it seemed a question of their living, she
had weakened before it, and he, with no such advantages, had somehow met
the issue with courage and conscience. She could not believe he did so
by inspiration, but she had since let him take the brunt of all such
issues and the responsibility. He made no reply, and she said: "I
suppose you'll admit now there was always something peculiar in the poor
boy's manner to Stoller."

He would