Roberts waited deliberately, until the pause added emphasis; with equal
deliberation he drove the wedge home.

"And still, in the fulness of this knowledge, you contracted by
implication to deliver to her this same thing--happiness," he said.

A second Harry Randall waited, then unconsciously he passed his hand
across his face.

"Yes," he echoed, "in the fulness of knowledge I did it. I loved her."

"Loved? And yet you sacrificed her! And on top of that again labelled her
rebellion unjustified!" He was silent.

Again Harry Randall's hand passed across his face, and this time it came
back damp.

"God, you're hard on me!" he said. "I deserve it, though, and more. She
was ignorant absolutely of what it meant to count pennies and deny
herself. She couldn't realize, couldn't!"

Roberts said nothing. The leaven was working.

"I hoped, deluded myself with the belief, that it would be different; yet
from the first I knew better. I was to blame absolutely. I simply loved
her, as I do now--that was all."

"Yes." This time the voice was gentle, unbelievably gentle. "I think I
understand--think I do. Anyway," the voice was matter of fact again,
startlingly, perhaps intentionally, so, "we're wandering from the point.
The past is dead. Let's bury it and look into the future. Do you see the
solution yet?"

Randall looked up swiftly. He smiled; the smile of a noncombatant.

"Yes, I see it; I can't help seeing it; but--" The sentence completed
itself in a gesture of impotency confessed.

"Don't do that, don't!" The annoyance was not simulated. "It's
unforgivable.... You're healthy, are you not?"

"Yes."

"And strong?"

"Reasonably."

"Well, what more can you ask? The world's full of work; avalanches of it,
mountains of it. It seems as though there never was so much to be done as
now, to-day; and the world will pay, pay if you'll do it. Can't you see
light?"

Randall caught himself in time to prevent a second gesture.

"No, frankly, I can't. I've tried, but I'm fundamentally incapable."

Roberts' great fighting face flashed about.

"You've tried--how?"

Randall hesitated, and once again the color mounted his cheek.

"I do my work here in the department the best I can, creditably, I think;
but still there isn't much to look forward to, nothing adequate."

"And that's as far as you've tried?"

"Yes; I have no other training."

Roberts looked at him, merely looked.

"No other training!... You fancy this