m out for once and not
break into every phrase. He wanted to tell her for her own good in one
clear, cold, logical, unbroken harangue how atrocious she was, how
futile, fiendish, heartless. But he knew that she would not listen to
him. Even if he gagged her mouth her mind would still dodge and buffet
him. How ancient was the experience that warned a man against argument
with a woman! And that wise old saw, "Let sleeping dogs lie," referred
even better to wives. He would not let her know that he was
awake--awake, perhaps, for hours of misery.

This had happened often of late. It had been a hard week, day after day
of bitter toil wearing him down in body and fraying his every nerve.

His business was in a bad way, and he alone could save it, and he could
save it only by ingenuity and inspiration. But the inspiration, he was
sure, would not come to him till he could rest throughout.

Sleep was his hope, his passion, food, drink, medicine. He was heavily
pledged at the bank. He could borrow no more. The president had
threatened him if he did not pay what was overdue. Bigger businesses
than his were being left to crash. A financial earthquake was rocking
every tower in the world.

Though he needed cash vitally to further his business, there was a
sharper and sharper demand upon him from creditors desperately harried
by their own desperate creditors. He must find with his brain some new
source of cash. He must fight the world. But how could he fight without
rest? Even pugilists rested between rounds.

He had not slept a whole night for a week. To-night he had gone to bed
sternly resolved on a while of annihilation. Anything for the brief
sweet death with the morning of resurrection.

And then she had quarreled with him. And now he was awake, and he felt
that he would not sleep.

He wondered what the hour was. He was tempted to rise and make a light
and look at his watch, but he felt that the effort and the blow of the
glare on his eyes might confirm his insomnia. He lay and wondered,
consumed with curiosity as to the hour--as if that knowledge could be of
value.

By and by, out of the stillness and the widespread black came the
slumbrous tone of a far-off town clock. Three times it rumored in the
air as if distance moaned faintly thrice.

Three o'clock! He had had but two hours' sleep, and would have no more!
And he needed ten! To-morrow morning--this morning!--he must join battle
for his very existence.

He lay