The Fighting Chance

Suddenly, deep within him, something seemed to fail, die out--perhaps a tiny newly lighted flame of unaccustomed purity, the dawning flicker of aspiration to better things. Whatever it was, material, spiritual, was gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed twilit doubt crept in--the same dull acquiescence--the same uncertainty of self, the familiar lack of will, of incentive, the congenial tendency to drift; and with it came weariness--perhaps reaction from the recent skirmishes with that master-vice.

"I suppose," he said in a dull voice, "you are right."

"No, I am wrong--wrong!" she said, lifting her lovely face and heavy eyes. "But I have chosen my path. … And you will forget."

"I hope so," he said simply.

"If you hope so, you will."

He nodded, unconvinced, watching a flock of sand-pipers whirling into the cove like a gray snow-squall and fearlessly settling on the beach.

After a while, with a long breath: "Then it is settled," she concluded.

If she expected corroboration from him she received none; and perhaps she was not awaiting it. She sat very still, her eyes lost in thought.

And Mortimer, peeping down at them over the thicket above, yawned impatiently and glanced about him for the most convenient avenue of self-effacement when the time arrived.