Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/303

Rh forever. He could never get back again to his view-point.

She had loosed the mouth of something in his bosom that clamored for her. It would be content with no other. It would hush for no other. His heart was aching now with the cry. What a place of torture it would be tomorrow, and the next year, and the next.

The tears had rained down this woman's face, but she had shaken her head.

That day was now seven years gone—seven years! Yesterday was no farther back. Well, well! He had been only partly right. The woman's face in his heart he had walled up. The cry for her he had silenced with the opiates of greed. Still they were both there and alive. To-night the wall had slipped away and the anæsthetics were powerless. It was no matter. After all, had she done well? She had lived on, spotless, pure, alone; and he had lived on—to this. Had she done well? That question it was no right of his to answer.

Carper got up from his chair, took the picture from the mantel, broke it across the face and dropped the pieces into the fire. It was