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she can’t love you she’s tried  she’s acted like a good sport  but she’s beginning to hate you  and you can’t blame her  she wanted children  and you haven’t been able

[Protesting feebly]

But I don’t know for certain that that’s my fault

[Then bitterly]

Aw, don’t kid yourself, if she’d married someone else if Gordon had lived and married her  I’ll bet in the first month she’d  you’d better resign from the whole game  with a gun!

[He swallows hard as if he were choking back a sob—then savagely]

Stop whining! go on and wake her up! say you’re willing to give her a divorce so she can marry some real guy who can give her what she ought to have!

[Then with sudden terror]

And if she says yes? I couldn’t bear it! I’d die without her!

[Then with a somber alien forcefulness]

All right good riddance! I’d have the guts to bump off then, all right! that’d set her free come on now! ask her!

[But his voice begins to tremble uncertainly again as he calls]

Nina.

[Opens her eyes and gazes calmly, indifferently at him]

Yes?

[Immediately terrified and beaten—thinking]