had hurt her enough,
in all conscience. The one thing he might have enjoyed doing, he
couldn't. Outside of that he didn't care who got it. She could leave it
to whomever she liked when her turn came. Not to whom it went, but what
would happen to it--that was what concerned him.

By his side, Rose, sitting so motionless that he was scarcely conscious
of her presence, was dying with him. With that peculiar gift of
profoundly sympathetic natures she was thinking and feeling much of what
he was experiencing. It seemed to her heart-breaking that Martin must
be forced to abandon the only things for which he cared. He had even
sacrificed his lovely Rose of Sharon for them--she had never been in any
doubt as to the reason for that sudden emotional retreat of his seven
years before. And she knew his one thought now must be for their
successful administration.

He had worked so hard always and yet had had so little happiness,
so little real brightness out of life. She felt, generously, with a
clutching ache, that with all the disappointments she had suffered
through him--from his first broken promises about the 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 co