Burned Bridges

"What is the matter with you--and dozens of men like you that I know?"

she demanded in a choked voice. "You stay at home living easy and

getting rich in the security that other men are buying with their blood

and their lives, over there. Fighting against odds and dying like dogs

in a ditch so that we can live here in peace and comfort. You don't even

do anything useful here. There doesn't seem to be anything that can make

you work or fight. They can sink passenger ships and bomb undefended

towns and shell hospitals, and you don't seem to resent it. I've heard

you prate about service--when you thought you walked with God and had a

mission from God to show other men the way. Why don't you serve now?

What is the matter with you? Is your skin so precious? If you can't

fight, can't you make ammunition or help to build ships? Are you a man,

or just a rabbit? I wish to God I were a man."

Thompson rose to his feet. The lash of her tongue had not lost its power

to sting since those far-off Lone Moose days. Yet, though it stabbed

like a spear, he was more conscious of a passionate craving to gather

her into his arms than of anger and resentment. There were tears in

Sophie's eyes--but there was no softness in her tone. Her red lips

curled as Thompson looked at her in dazed silence. There did not seem to

be anything he could say--not with Sophie looking at him like that.

"If you feel that way about it--"

He broke off in the middle of the muttered sentence, turned on his heel,

walked out of the room. And he went down the street suffering from a

species of shock, saying desperately to himself that it did not matter,

nothing mattered.

But he knew that was a lie, a lie he told himself to keep his soul from

growing sick.

He went back to his rooms for the last time, and tried with pen and

paper to set down some justification of himself for Sophie's eyes. But

he could not satisfy himself with that. His pride revolted against it.

Why should he plead? Or rather, what was the use of pleading? Why

should he explain? He had a case for the defence, but defence avails

nothing after sentence has been pronounced. He had waited too long. He

had been tried and found wanting.

He tore the letter into strips, and having sent his things to the

station long before, put on his hat now and walked slowly there himself,

for it lacked but an hour of train-time.

At the corner of Pender and Hastings he met Sam Carr.

"Welcome, youthful stranger," Carr greeted heartily. "I haven't seen you

for a long time. Walk down to the Strand with me and have a drink. I've

been looking over the Vancouver Construction Company's yard, and it's a

very dry place."