ife is so--difficult," she said, with a sob.

"You take it too hard," he answered rapidly. "You think too much
of--little things. It isn't the way to be happy. What you ought
to do is to grab the big things while you can, and chuck the little
ones into the gutter. Life's nothing but a farce. It isn't meant
to be taken--really seriously. It isn't long enough for sacrifice.
I tell you, it isn't long enough!"

There was something passionate in the reiterated declaration. The
clasp of his hand was feverish. That strange vitality of his that
had made him defy the death he had courted seemed to vibrate within
him like a stretched wire. His attitude was tense with it. And a
curious thrill went through her, as though there were electricity
in his touch.

She could not argue the matter with him though every instinct told
her he was wrong. She was too overwrought to see things with an
impartial eye. She felt too tired greatly to care.

"I feel," she told him drearily, "as if I want to get away from
everything and everybody."

"Oh no, you don't!" he said. "All you want is to get away from
Burke. That's your trouble--and always will be under present
conditions. Do you think I haven't looked on long enough? Why
don't you go away?"

"Go away!" She looked up at him again, startled.

Guy's sunken eyes were shining with a fierce intensity. They urged
her more poignantly than words. "Don't you see what's going to
happen--if you don't?" he said.

That moved her. She sprang up with a sound that was almost a cry,
and stood facing him, her hand hard pressed against her heart.

"Of course I know he's a wonderful chap and all that," Guy went on.
"But you haven't cheated yourself yet into believing that you care
for him, have you? He isn't the sort to attract any woman at first
sight, and I'll wager he has never made love to you. He's far too
busy with his cattle and his crops. What on earth did you marry
him for? Can't you see that he makes a slave of everyone who comes
near him?"

But she lifted her head proudly at that. "He has never made a
slave of me," she said.

"He will," Guy rejoined relentlessly. "He'll have you under his
heel before many weeks. You know it in your heart. Why did you
marry him, Sylvia? Tell me why you married him!"

The insistence of the question compelled an answer. Yet she
paused, for it was a question she had never asked herself. Why had
she married Burke indeed? Had i