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 he'd gone to Alaska and they got evidence that he'd died there. Anyway, they brought it into court and it was good enough to let Hartley sell the land."

"What did you do about it?"

"Me? I just found out what I could, David. I hadn't told Hartley that Sam married me; and I certainly wouldn't tell then. It would look like I was after a share of their land. I didn't want any land."

"But why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm telling you now, David, now that I know Sam's alive. He's my husband; he's never married any one else; he's always wanted me. No one'll say they won't touch his money because he's married to me. I'm going to him, David; I'm going." And David realized that she wanted to go.

He realized part, at least, of the hurt to her from his father; he realized part of the hurt to her from his own conduct in the last three days when he had left her alone to her own imaginings and interpretations. This hurt would have healed; he could have healed it by now with his explanation of what he had done, if that letter from Bolton had not arrived and she had not called for it. But that letter, with its fact that Bolton was alive, made this irremediable. For it did not merely bear the news that her husband lived; reaching her when it did, under the circumstances, it regained for Bolton something, at least, of his old domination over her. And David, confronting her, felt it.

He felt that that man who had cooked with her the camp supper which had tasted "the best ever," though it was burnt to a crisp—that man who had been vague