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 in some way released him from the bondage of the two women. They seemed all at once to belong to another world in which he played no rele, a world strange and horrible and fantastic. Even the twins did not seem to be his children, but creatures born somehow of the two women and all they stood for in his tired mind. They were two squalling tomato-colored infants in whom he could take no interest—a judgment sent by fate as a punishment for his own weakness and indecision. He grew bitter for the first time and out of the bitterness there was born a new strength.

Sitting there in the softly falling snow, he resolved to go his own way. He couldn't desert Naomi and his children, but he could tell her that he was through with her once and for all. And he saw suddenly the whole sickening depth of the tangle—that it was her fault no more than his, that she had suffered as much as himself, that perhaps in the end she would suffer more, because (he knew it with a kind of disgust) she loved him with all her soul and body.

Beating his arms against his body, he rose and turned the handle of the door. McTavish was inside, alone, sitting by the stove. At the sound of the handle turning, he looked up and grinned.

"Hello, Philip," he said, and then quickly, "What the hell are you doing out without a coat or hat?"

Philip grinned, and the very grin hurt his face, as if it had been frozen by the cold. "I came out in a hurry . . . I wanted to borrow a coat and hat off you."

McTavish rose and stretched his great arms, yawn-