intments. It never forgives the man or woman who disappoints
it. Now, I know something else that's on your mind. You think that because
you operated--fatally, we'll say,--on your grandfather, that that is an
obstacle in the way of your marriage with Anne. Tommy-rot! I've heard of a
hundred doctors who have married the widows of their patients, and their
friends usually congratulate 'em, which goes to prove something, doesn't
it? You are expected by ninety per cent. of the inhabitants of greater New
York to marry Anne Tresslyn. They may have forgotten everything else, but
that one thing they _do_ expect. They said it would happen and it must.
They said it when Anne married your grandfather, they said it when he died
and they say it now, even though their minds are filled with other
things."

Thorpe eyed him steadily throughout this earnest appeal. "Do you think
that Anne expects it, Simmy?" he inquired, a harsh note in his voice.

Simmy had to think quickly. "I think she does," he replied, and always was
to wonder whether he said the right thing. "She is in love with you. She
wants you, and anything that Anne wants she expects to get. I don't mean
that in a disparaging sense, either. If she doesn't marry you, she'll
never marry any one. She'll wait for you till the end of her days. Even if
you were to marry some one else, she'd--"

"I shall not marry any one else," said Thorpe, almost fiercely.

"--She'd go on waiting and wanting you just the same, and you would go on
wanting her," concluded Simmy. "You will never consider your life complete
until you have Anne Tresslyn as a part of it. She wants to make you happy.
That's what most women want when they're in love with a man."

"I tell you, Simmy, I cannot marry Anne. I love her,--God knows how
terribly I want her,--in spite of everything. It _is_ nature. You can't
kill love, no matter how hard you try. Some one else has to do the
killing. Anne is keeping it alive in me. She has tortured my love, beaten
it, outraged it, but all the time she has been secretly feeding it,
caressing it, never for an instant letting it out of her grasp. You cannot
understand, Simmy. You've never been in love with a woman like Anne. She
may have despaired at times, but she has never given up the fight, not
even when she must have thought that I despised her. She knew that my love
was mortally hurt, but do you think she would let it die? No! She will
keep it alive forever,--and she will suff