Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/55

 She smiled as he went on: "I'd like to stay here for a while if you don't object to a fellow who has consumption."

"If you don't object," she said lightly, "why should I?"

"You're right!" he cried. "Why should you? It is I who has to do the suffering."

He lifted his suit-case from the carriage and paid Ted Taylor his fee.

"I only hired you for one way," he drawled, "because when I go back I'm going in style."

"You mean my carriage isn't good enough?"

"I mean that I'll probably go back in a hearse."

Ted Taylor spat in disgust. "You're crazy," he declared.

"If you're right, I'll go back in a straitjacket."

Without a word, Ted Taylor climbed into his carriage and drove away. He was shaking his head dubiously. That young chap was plain mad.

Steve Garland followed Mary upstairs to a large room with four windows. It was a corner room and the sunlight streamed in in a golden flood.

"This is wonderful," he said.

"I think you'll be able to rest here," said Mary.

"My God, I don't want to rest!" he cried. "I merely want to live completely happy for a while. You might think of me as a dweller on the threshold. Someday the great door may swing shut closing me in. In simpler language I have been told by my doctor that I must go to Arizona if I wish to get my health back again. That's why I came here. I am desirous of dying enthusiastically. My health deserted me. It was a false friend. Why then should I bother going in search of it? Death on the other hand is my mistress. It is a persistent wooer. It never leaves me out of its sight. A man is a fool to go off in quest of life, persistently to worry that his health may not be restored. How much more simple and beautiful it is to sink softly into the sweet arms of death! Death is more restful than life. It quiets the nerves. Sleep is merely a fleeting death. Every time man is awakened, he is really born again. Why should people fear death if they have faith? Is their religious worship merely an idle gesture? If Heaven is such a commendable place, so gorgeously beautiful,