PART ONE. THE ROOTS

     

I SUPPOSE it was that five-point-nine that was to blame—;or the gunner who fired it; or maybe it was my own fault for lagging behind the rest of my battalion as we advanced deployed through that ploughed-up cemetery; but, somehow, I find myself laying it all before Anita's door. She would never have permitted me to marry her, feeling the way she did. As my mind wanders back over those days long ago I remember that I was certain I would die if she refused me; now I may die because she didn't.

They are going to bury her tomorrow, or so I've been told, and they are holding me responsible for her death. The District Attorney, who visited me in my cell this morning, says that I am sure to get the Chair. But I am not afraid. On the other hand, my own lawyer is confident they will have to let me go free. In the event that he is wrong and they do sentence me to die, it will not matter much. After what I have been through, death no longer presents a terrifying picture. And this is very strange for I have always been afraid to die.

If only I had been born fearless, like Carter or Mullins or Sergeant Wilkinson, maybe all this would not have happened. There is an old saying that Fortune favors the bold. But because the thought of dying and the rattle of machine-guns made me tremble, I crept into a shell-hole and remained there, digging my fingers into the soft earth while everyone else continued to advance.

Practically the entire battalion was wiped out during the next half hour. Had I not broken ranks and hidden myself, protected by the cover of darkness, I would have been killed then and there with my comrades and spared the subsequent nightmare that became my life. I would have died a hero; not a murderer. But, naturally, I knew nothing of what the future had in store for me.

It was while I huddled in that shell-hole that a five-point-nine shrieked close to my head. That is all I can remember until I suddenly came to my senses more than three months later in a small, French hospital forty kilometres from Paris. Little did I dream that that shell would form one of the most important links in a chain of circumstantial evidence which would indict me, try me, and convict me of a crime later to be committed four thousand miles away! A theologian would claim, no doubt, that God punished me for being a coward, and perhaps that assumption is correct. I don't pretend to know. All that I do know is that I've certainly been through hell since the war and that if I had known then what I know now and been given the choice either of advancing with the rest and stopping a bullet or lagging behind and living, I most certainly would have chosen the former.

It has always been my custom to hide my unnatural timidity; but here, in this confession, explanation of my peculiar behaviour, or what have you, I have resolved to be absolutely frank and truthful. Since my childhood, any action, sport or utterance of words which might in some way lead to physical violence I have painstakingly avoided. It might have been for this reason that I chose the career of doctor with the altruistic ambition to help alleviate some of the world's suffering. However, after two years of pre-medicine, my widowed mother passed away and I was forced to give up my studies and use the small insurance in the opening up of a drugstore.

It wasn't much of a store, compared with the glittering chrome and steel of modern places. The prescription room was only half the size of this cell from which I write and the little wooden counter, where my errand-boy dispensed bottled soda-pop and ice-cream, was scarcely longer than this cot. But it was mine. I was proud to be its sole proprietor. The first day I was in possession of the place I had a large green and white sign painted:

THE ITHACA DRUG COMPANY

Peter Thatcher

Apothecary

All this was late in 1915, when I was only twenty-four years old, and I suppose that my extreme youth did little toward establishing my reliability as a competent pharmacist. The people of the town—;and when I say this I do not mean the Cornell students—;a good many of them knowing me from the time I was a little boy, could scarcely have confidence enough to permit me to compound their ofttimes dangerous prescriptions. My small store would probably have failed in that first year had it not been for old Doc Turnbull who sent me all his work and was instrumental in spreading around town the fact that I, at least, never took a drink during business hours. In this manner he helped my trade, at the same time doing much to damage the reputation of his old-time enemy, Ray Cavender, who owned the apothecary shop on the opposite corner.

Those were comparatively happy days. I was working very hard building up a business and time did not hang heavily on my hands. Also I was single then; my heart was my own and I was not even contemplating marriage. As a matter of fact, women have always awed me somewhat and I have generally avoided them. As a boy I was inordinately shy and whenever a girl schoolmate was thrust upon me as a partner for a two-step, my chums would jeer: “Look at him blush!” Whereupon, sadly, the color was sure to flood my cheeks.

Perhaps it was this shyness that prevented me from having the multiple “puppy-loves” people are always talking about. At least I know, if there can be any satisfaction in that, that I have never been in love, even momentarily, with anyone other than the girl I eventually made my wife. You may be inclined to doubt that I loved even her. The press has been very unkind. The reporters I have allowed to interview me did not seem to understand that a man can kill someone he loves and still feel no pangs of remorse. No, I am not sorry I killed Anita. As a matter of fact, I'm not entirely sure I did kill her. Theoretically she killed herself and I was merely the instrument that brought about her end.

But I am running ahead of my story. The statements I have just made sound contradictory and until you have all the facts I cannot hope that you will understand.

Just as I manifested no interest in women, women manifested no interest in me. I am not bad to look at, I think. I am rather short but with a good build. I am rarely ill and even now, after many years of deciphering scrawled prescriptions, my eye-sight is perfect. But there has never been anything about me that would attract a girl. I am not very romantic and for this reason my life, up until the time I met Anita, was curiously empty of heart throbs.

I lived all alone in my mother's house. Although I could have made excellent use of the money it would have brought, I could not part with it. Quite a number of times I was approached by real estate investors who offered “to take it off my hands.” While their propositions were inviting, I could not imagine myself living any other place. The house was very old, built way back in the Civil War days by my father, and not too large to be comfortable. It was situated on a quiet road lined with great elm trees; and it had a garden which sloped down to the bank of Lake Cayuga. In the summer I used to spend much of my time there after I had closed the store, watching other young people drift by in canoes or bathe on the opposite side of the cove. Their light laughter as they splashed about came pleasantly to my ears and made me feel very contented. Occasionally I thought of the European War as the buzzing of mosquitoes around my head suggested the droning flight of planes. It always seemed strange to me that humans can be social at one moment and fired with the desire to destroy at the next. And as I pondered this paradox of nature I was thankful that I lived in America where there was so little discord.

Some evenings Doc Turnbull would stop by in passing on his evening round of patients and we would talk. I should say he would talk for most of the time I merely listened. He was a fat old man with a great mop of white hair and very bushy brows. It was often impossible to see his eyes but they were generally twinkling with good humour. He was not a very cultured person for he was gruff, outspoken and perpetually profane. However, even with his solecisms and epithets there was an uncanny truth in whatever he said. Many of his homely observations which at the time I decried I have since recognized to be correct. If he were alive today, I would write to him and tell him that I have at last discovered his greatness.

“Pete,” I can hear him saying, “people never thank you for the truth. They expect you to lie; and if you don't live up to their expectations.... Well, by the Jesus, they tie a tin can to your tail. It's like a woman who asks you how she looks. If you don't praise her... off comes your head!”

I ventured no comment to this because I had a sneaking feeling what he was leading up to. Grateful as I was to Doc Turnbull, I did not want him telling me how to run my business. I wanted to run it myself.

“That's why you've just lost old lady Cahill as a customer, boy. What? You didn't know you'd lost her? Well, you have. You see, Pete, I've been treating that bitch for almost fifteen years. Treating her for what, I don't know. There ain't really nothing the matter with her except one helluva disposition. She just ain't happy 'less she's got something to complain about. To use one of them new-fangled names, she's a hypochondriac. Why, say, if I didn't hand her a fancy Latin label for all her ailings, she'd up and have that young squirt Carpenter over inside ten minutes. So, as far as I'm concerned, she's suffering from a chronic omnia gallia in tres partem complicated by a slight e pluribus unum.” Doc paused and spit reflectively before adding, “You shouldn't have tipped her off that what I prescribed for her was only a mixture of salt, bicarb and water. She raised hell, I'm telling you. I had to change it to sugar, bicarb and water. And she was so peeved at you for telling her she looked the picture of health that I just know she'll take her trade somewhere else.”

I am reluctant to admit that there were other incidents like the one described. At least five or six times I was unwittingly instrumental in getting the Doc in hot water with his patients, not realizing that there was such a thing as being over-sympathetic. I was certain that it would make any person happier to know that there was nothing really serious about his or her condition. How little I knew of life! But Doc was always forgiving and while occasionally disgusted with me for being so inapt a pupil, he never ceased his frequent visits to my home until after my marriage.

Anita never liked Doctor Turnbull and I am positive he sensed it. After he had gone home, she would very often become abusive. Also, whenever I failed to hang up my clothes or neglected to wipe my feet before entering the house she would accuse me of rapidly becoming “a pig like that Turnbull quack.” In the beginning, I tried to put in a quiet word of defense for the old fellow who was my friend, reminding her that were it not for him the drugstore would fail. Soon, though I took to holding my tongue. It only enraged Anita and, being a person set in her opinions, it did little good trying to make her like him as I did. Besides, since I was in love with her, it always distressed me to see her upset. Hence, Doc's visits became fewer, longer intervals elapsed between them, and soon he did not come at all. The only chats I ever had with him thereafter were at the store when I was too busy and he too much in a hurry to linger long.

But to get back to Anita. I first set eyes upon her on April 17, 1917, when business was booming and the nation was infected with war hysteria. You may think it strange that I am able to remember the exact date some twenty years later; but I have in my hand the prescription she brought in to be filled. It was made out to Miss Anita Hunt by Leo Carpenter, M.D., and called for a capsule (terpin, hydrate and codeine) generally useful in relieving a minor chest congestion. I remember that when she passed it over the counter she remarked that she was paying the price for an early swim in the lake.

I will spare you her description. Besides, you have probably seen her pictures in the newspapers and marvelled at her beauty. One of those pictures was taken shortly after we were married so you can see why my heart stopped beating as I looked into her eyes. I think my hand must have shook as I went about the business of filling the prescription. I was infinitely grateful that there was no one in the store who would cry, “Look at him blush!” for I feel sure that I would have dropped through the floor.

I remember that my fingers felt all thumbs as I worked, for her clear voice distracted me. She casually remarked that she had just come to town a few days before and asked me if I knew of any nice furnished rooms. She went on to explain that at present she was stopping at the Colonial House which was far too expensive for her new job at the Knit Shoppe. After I had blurted out the suggestion that Mrs. Michaelson's boarding house on North Tioga was perhaps the place she was seeking, she thanked me warmly, handed me twenty cents for the package and left the store. In my confusion I said nothing. The fact that I usually charged a quarter for the capsules was forgotten. I only knew that the girl was the most fascinating customer it had ever been my privilege to wait on.

I finished the remainder of the day in somewhat of a trance. I vaguely recall having filled a prescription for fat Mrs. Burtleson and removed a particle of dust from Joe Crespi's eye but the rest remains a blank. My record book, which they have permitted me to keep in my cell and which I hope will jog my memory of those days I am trying to describe, states that I sold eight bottles of cough syrup on that particular day, two hot-water bottles, six toothbrushes, fourteen rolls of bandages, and that I filled twelve prescriptions. If I did, I can't remember. But I know that when I sat near the lake that night, and smoked with old Doc Turn-bull, I found myself strangely inattentive and, for the first time, glad when he went home.

I was thinking how wonderful it might be for any man to call such a woman “wife.” The usual vision of pipe, slippers and soft music on the gramophone, a large dog, the evening paper and Anita darning socks lingered to drug my mind; pleasant pictures even though slightly absurd. I slumped down in my chair and smoked cigarette after cigarette until it was very late. One by one the lights across Cayuga winked out. The faint breeze that had been present all evening gradually whipped itself into a wind. In the elms the night crickets fell silent and only the quiet slap of the ripples on the shore came to my ears.

It was not until after I had sneezed several times that I realized I was catching cold. But more important still, it dawned on me that I was falling in love. I rose from the chair, cramped and stiff, went into the house and took two asperin tablets before crawling sleepily into bed.

 

During the weeks that followed Anita became the most popular girl in town. She often came into my store just before closing time in the hot evenings for some ice-cream or a bottle of cool soda. Usually she was with young Doctor Carpenter whom I had known at medical school.

Carpenter was a pleasant enough chap and I rather liked him—;despite Doc Turnbull's disgruntled remarks. He was the son of the town's wealthiest realtor whose poor health forced him to spend much of his time away from home at various resorts and spas. Therefore, Leo generally lived alone, surrounded by servants in the big brick house on the Heights. The boy was tall and handsome with a neat blond moustache. It was his habit to finger it whenever he was perplexed. I recall hearing the story that one day he was called into consultation at the request of one of Doc Turnbull's patients. Leo took so long to arrive at the simple diagnosis that the old medico became annoyed. “For the love of God!”, shouted Turnbull suddenly. “Will you quit yanking that damned thing and tell the lady her bellyache's an acute appendicitis!” In revenge, Leo spread it about town that old Doc's bedside manners were as comforting as those of a callous veterinary. A feud ensued, lasting for several months. Then it died as suddenly as it had started and the two merely regarded each other with cold disdain.

Of course it was only natural that Leo's good looks and custom tailoring should make him popular with the town girls and even with the young men. He was the proud owner of a Winton Six touring car, a beautiful $2800 machine in which he made his professional rounds. In the evenings during spring and summer it was his custom to pack his car with young people and roar away in the direction of the Tompkins Country Club. I say, in the direction of because I was never invited along on any of those rides. I am afraid that I was never popular with any but the older people who were my customers and with whom I would sympathetically discuss their various ailments. It may be that I was too serious about myself and my little store; but I did want to succeed and often I would dream of the time when the store would be larger.

You may be sure that I went through considerable agony watching the girl with whom I was in love constantly being escorted by the handsome physician. The more times I saw her in his company the more I loved her and the less attention I paid to business. My regular patrons soon noticed my distraction. Doc Turnbull, with his customary rare insight into human nature, almost hit upon my trouble. “You should soon be thinking of getting married, son,” he grunted as he chewed away at his cigar. “We all need the womenfolk, you know. It ain't natural for you to sweat all day in your dope-shop and then go home and cook your own grub. Look around and pick yourself a slave!”

I tried to cover up my embarrassment by offering the jocular comment: “And be henpecked like you? Not on your life!”

Turnbull winced. “Oh, a man can be happy", he insisted, “even though he has got a wife. That is, provided he knows the formula for marital bliss.” He paused, waiting for me to express the desire to hear this formula but I am afraid my mind was wandering again. “Up to forty, double bed; forty to fifty, single beds; fifty to sixty, separate rooms; above sixty, separate homes.”

I laughed at this and asked him how old he was. “Me? Oh, that's for those who can afford it. You can't get rich shoving pills down people's throats... unless you've got a tricky moustache.”

Hurriedly, I changed the subject. I did not want him to start discussing Carpenter. It might lead to mention of Anita. It had somehow leaked out that they were already engaged and rumor had it that they contemplated an undelayed marriage.

In a small town a drugstore is invariably the center of gossip—;barber-shops running a close second—;and I am sure that I was the most informed person in town. I was always the first to know things and very often people would ask me questions about what so-and-so intended to do. Not wishing to be involved in the spreading of malicious gossip, it was my policy to look innocent and even surprised that they expected me to know.

To the remarks I overheard concerning Anita and Dr. Carpenter I took little heed. It would never do for anyone to suspect my own interest in the girl. Folks might laugh or guy me about her. Besides it might get back to Anita. So I contained myself as best I could and tried to dismiss the remarks casually. In this, I pride myself on being successful. Up until the day I married Anita before the Justice of the Peace no one uncovered my true feelings.

One Saturday afternoon Leo and Anita were in the store and fell to quarreling. I can't remember how the argument started exactly but it became more vigorous as the minutes passed until I felt embarrassed witnessing it. I retired to the drug room, hoping that a customer would come in so that they either would have to cease their quarrel or continue it some place else. From what I overheard I gathered that Anita wanted to attend some party or other and Leo did not. This seemed to me to be a trivial cause for a scrap but, at length, Anita stamped out of the store, slamming the screen door viciously behind her. Leo remained where he was.

As I came from the back, carrying some packages of supplies to explain my disappearance from the scene of the dispute, Leo made the remark: “Well, if that's the way she feels, to hell with her!” Then he turned to me. “Aren't women the limit, Pete? Treat them nice, and the first thing you know they think they own you!”

From that time on, I am afraid I entertained the notion that Leo was not in love with her; and that if she was capable of ranting at him the way she had, the affair would not last long. I did not know then that passion plays strange tricks on people. I did not know that the ones who hate hard, love hard.

The following day I learned that Anita had gone to the party unescorted and, although the weather was too cold to be suitable, had taken a swim. To my disappointment, I also learned that they had made up later on and had driven off in his car for the remainder of the evening.

Indeed, the graph of my hope was erratic; first up and then down as weeks rolled by. Whenever she would come into the store to purchase some item she would smile pleasantly and direct at me only those impersonalities which had to do with the temperature or the weather. Only once did she say, “And how are you today?” Fearful that in a moment of weakness I might let slip something which would give me away, I retreated behind my best storekeeper's manner.

The opinion might be formed by this time that I am something of a stoic and, except for one instance which I set down at this point, I think I did rather well in concealing my love. But I could scarcely keep myself from vaulting the counter and striking Doctor Carpenter the day he walked into my store and requested that I sell him a certain article which, I had no doubt, he intended to employ in wooing the woman for whom I yearned. Naturally, I did no such thing. Instead, I controlled my temper and curtly informed him that I was completely sold out of what he wanted. I think he looked at me in a puzzled way. My tone, I suppose, was quite the reverse of the usual deferential manner I adopted when speaking to customers.

In that the doctor weighed fully twenty-five pounds more than I did, and was well respected as an amateur boxer, you may draw the conclusion if you like that I controlled myself because I was afraid of reprisals. Carpenter was not the type of man to permit himself to be struck without retaliating. But the truth of the matter is that at the moment I was too enraged to think of what bodily harm any such action on my part would involve. I held myself in check only because I knew it would give me away.

Through the plate-glass window, I watched the doctor cross the street and enter Ray Cavender's place, proceed to the back of the store and emerge a few minutes later putting something into his vest pocket. I felt sick to my stomach and a little dizzy. I locked up the drug room and, when my errand-boy returned from a delivery, I ordered him to take charge of the place for the rest of the day.

 

The following events which immediately preceded my marriage seem now to have happened with incredible swiftness but I imagine the days must have appeared intolerably long at the time. My prescription record informs me that on June 28, 1917, I began to make myself sleeping powders out of mild opiates. Since I am usually a sound sleeper, this suggests that I tossed and turned on my mattress as my mind tortured me by conjuring up visions of Anita in the arms of my rival.

It was Mrs. Michaelson, Anita's landlady, who first brought me the news that Anita and Carpenter had set the Fourth of July as their wedding day. My heart sank when I heard this. In despair I tried to persuade myself that it was merely a rumor without the slightest foundation of fact. To more or less substantiate my theory, Henry Liscombe, the County Clerk, who frequently patronized my store, had made no mention of issuing a license to the couple and Henry was the town's most garrulous individual. That night, however, I learned to my dismay that Anita had quit her job at the Knit Shoppe, telling her employer that she was going to be married.

As I was locking up on the evening of July 2nd I again encountered Mrs. Michaelson. Being something of a pet of her's from the days when I helped her carry bundles from the fruit stand (where I used to work during summers) to her buggy, she was accustomed to confide in me many interesting tidbits concerning her lodgers. So it was not without precedent that she related to me, almost verbatim, the terrible scrap that had taken place between Anita and the doctor in her back parlor.

“When he showed her the telegram, Peter, I thought the roof would come off! She was that mad! I was in the dining-room, mind you, setting the places for supper. I couldn't help overhearing the whole thing!”

That the Michaelson dining-room was immediately adjacent to the back parlor, I was well aware; and she could very easily have retired to the kitchen had she so desired. But, of course, I did not suggest this to her. I was only too grateful for any news which had to do with Anita's plans.

“Never in all my born days did I see a body so unreasonable,” went on the old lady. “Here's that poor boy Leo with a telegram saying that he'd better hike himself out to Phoenix right away if he wants to see his father alive; and here's that Hunt baggage insisting that they both go... after the wedding, of course! Well, Leo minced no words, I can tell you! He said: 'That would be nice, wouldn't it? Having a honeymoon while my dad's dying. I'm sorry, Anita. We'll have to postpone getting married until I come back.' At that she flies completely off the handle! But c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y! 'If you run off now without taking me, after I quit my job and told everyone I was getting married on the Fourth, you can stay away forever for all I care!' Well, Peter, to make a long story short, as I've got to get back to the house and see to it that that hired girl's cleaned up the kitchen before sneaking home, Leo turns on his heel and leaves her standing there. They were supposed to go out somewhere, too. I don't know if he'll go through with his trip or not but there's a train out to New York tonight at nine and if he isn't aboard it, I'll be mighty surprised!”

Mrs. Michaelson hurried off down State Street, little dreaming that she had caused a great jubilance to well up within me. My mental scoreboard chalked up another point for my team.

That same evening after I had cooked and eaten my solitary meal, I decided to take a little stroll. It had been very warm all day but, with the going down of the sun, a welcome cool descended, bringing me renewed energy. This was rather a phenomenon because I usually felt totally spent after ten hours on my feet, and walking, whether in the evening cool or not, was an activity it was my habit to avoid. Nevertheless, on that night I found myself irresistibly drawn to the railroad station.

Arriving there, I lingered in the shadows of the closed freight warehouse, my attention riveted on the lighted interior of the waiting-room. I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to nine. I was badly in need of a smoke but I did not want to risk revealing myself to anyone who might happen by. From where I stood I could not of course see the lights of Ithaca's famous crescent but the Trumansburg road rose in a steep, broken line of lights, reminding me, for no apparent reason, of Jacob's ladder. A west-bound freight, probably going to Buffalo and Chicago, thundered past. The headlight of the locomotive rested upon me for a brief moment and then flashed away.

Soon I was rewarded for my patience. Doctor Carpenter stepped out of the waiting-room and onto the platform, carrying two satchels. Far up the track the whistle of a train came faintly mournful to my ears. I looked around for some sign of Anita. I could see none. If she was there, she must be still inside the waiting-room. The two pieces of luggage, though, were a bad omen. Moreover, the doctor kept turning his head this way and that as if he expected someone.

Soon the train ground and hissed to a stop. A porter descended and lifted the two bags into the Pullman and as the conductor cried, “All 'board!” and waved a signal to the engineer, the doctor reluctantly climbed up as the train gathered speed.

Well! No words of mine can express how elated I was! I could have sung and, strangely enough, that is exactly what I did do. My voice, at best, has never been much more than a nasal groan which, as it increases in volume, gets worse. As the train disappeared in the distance, its red tail-lantern shrinking smaller and smaller until it could no longer be seen, I let loose my joy with such fervor that every person within a mile of the station must have been seriously alarmed. I remember the station-agent came out onto the platform and recognizing me asked: “What's the trouble, Pete? Ya sick?”

Of course I recalled that Carpenter and Anita had scrapped before and had made up within a few hours. But this, I hoped, would be a permanent rift which they would never allow their prides to bridge. While my own suit was in no way furthered, at least I knew my most formidable rival was temporarily out of the picture, leaving the field clear. It was now up to me.

But how? I had never had any great experience with women and, except for one or two occasions at medical school when, in the company of some classmates, I visited a house of ill repute, absolutely no intimate relations with them at all.

This problem occupied my mind that night as I returned to my house and took up my usual position near the lake. That I could never be happy without Anita had long ago impressed me; and I knew that unless I worked fast the doctor might return and make up with her. Yes, or she might become infatuated with someone else. There were so many nice young men in town, business people and wealthy students from up on the hill. I wondered at my conceit in hoping to succeed.

Fortunately, the problem solved itself without my having to devise any schemes by which she would fall in love with me and consent to a marriage. And the very night that marked Doctor Carpenter's departure from the scene marked the fulfillment of all my dreams.

 

I must have dropped off to sleep in my deck-chair for several hours on that night of July 2nd; for when I opened my eyes the absence of any lights across the lake made it obvious that midnight was a thing of the past. I felt refreshed after my nap and, as my mind awakened and became conscious of what had transpired earlier, I felt even buoyant. Despite the fact that I would have to be at the store earlier than usual the next morning to receive a shipment of fireworks, I decided not to turn in. I was not the least bit sleepy and anyway I wanted to think.

But on my back porch I had left a light burning and it annoyed me. Although my back was to it, the yellow glow coming over my shoulder seemed to intrude upon the welcome comfort of the darkness. The night was unusually dark for that season of the year. The sky was a vast expanse of mourning veils, uncontaminated by a moon or even by stars. And the air was almost cold.

Over Cayuga the wind seemed to moan the syllables of the lake's name and the rustling leaves of the trees sounded like the applause of some vast audience. Even with these noises, I got the strange feeling that it was quiet.

Always having been an ardent admirer of Nature and never having failed to be impressed by each and every one of her miracles, I am also sadly ignorant of her—;like most people. I have never been able to remember the names of stars or trees or to distinguish types of birds; but I have always appreciated their beauty and often thought how strange the world would be if there were no such things. At the moment, however, even Nature could not force her way into my thoughts, occupied as they were with Anita and the baffling problem of winning her.

As I was about to extinguish the porch light, I was startled by the sound of splashing in the lake. I left the light burning and made my way to the shore. Something was emerging from the water. I could not make out who it was or even if it was a human. At first I fancied it might be some dog belonging to a neighbor.

“Who's there?” I called, feeling very silly.

I was rewarded by a groan of relief. “So you've awaken at last, have you? I've been paddling around for over an hour! Didn't you hear me call?”

The voice shook me and I fumbled in my pockets for a match. I might have spared myself the effort because I recognized her voice instantly. The match flared and before it flickered out, burning the tips of my fingers, I saw that she was in a bathing suit and shivering with the cold.

“Miss Hunt!” I gasped.

“That's right,” she replied, her teeth chattering. “And whoever you are I'm sorry to have got you out of bed. I'm afraid I lost my bearings in the dark. Am I anywhere near town? Lucky I saw your light.”

I struck another match so that she would recognize me. Needless to say, this unexpected visit seemed most portentous and left me temporarily tongue-tied. Of all the persons who might have been swimming in the lake, it had to be Anita! And of all the places she might have come ashore, it had to be at my own landing! I almost began to believe in God.

Now when I look back on it I can only regret that she came that night. If I had not left that light burning, in all probability she would have drowned or landed at some other point. In any case I am certain we would never have been married and the marriage, I reiterate, was the direct cause of my undoing.

“I'm Peter Thatcher,” I managed to say.

“Yes, of course. I know. The druggist man.”

I became suddenly aware that her mouth was blue with the cold and that her arms were goose-flesh. “Will... will you come inside, Miss Hunt? You've got to warm yourself or you'll catch your death of cold. I... I live alone here,” I stammered apologetically as an afterthought.

As I uttered this, I was sure she would refuse. Ladies did not visit bachelor's homes unchaperoned in the dead of night.

“I was waiting for you to invite me in.” And she accepted my invitation with a celerity that was not surprising when you saw how chilled she was.

“I was only thinking of the proprieties.” I removed my Norfolk jacket and placed it about her wet shoulders—;not without misgivings because the shirt I was wearing was rather shabby and none too clean. She murmured her thanks.

“Proprieties? I'm only interested in something warm.”

“Watch out for those sharp stones,” I warned her. “You'll cut your feet. I've been promising myself to clear this beach for years but somehow I never got around to it.”

Guiding her with a hand on her bare elbow, we soon reached the house. I led her around into the living-room. “If you'll wait here, Miss Hunt, I'll run upstairs and find you some towels and maybe something to warm you up inside. I'm afraid that there are no logs for this fireplace but... but it might be warmer in the kitchen if I light the stove.” I remember that I felt ashamed to suggest that. In those very formal days one did not entertain their guests in the kitchen. Now, I understand that parties are given in attics, cellars, kitchens and even in hotel bedrooms. Such affairs twenty years ago were almost unheard of.

But Anita smiled reassuringly. “O, let's do go into the kitchen. I'll be lighting the stove while you fetch the towels.”

I must confess that I am not much of a housekeeper, and during the years I lived alone, my place was generally very untidy. It was my custom to hire a scrub-woman on the first of each month to do a thorough job of hoeing out. Frequently, by the end of the month I would find myself without a clean dish to eat from and all of my towels black with shoe polish. Therefore I was infinitely grateful that this was the second of the month. With everything in good order the little house was very presentable and I know that Anita was delighted with it.

I changed my shirt while I was upstairs before I did anything else and then I combed my hair. Besides three fresh towels, my best bathrobe and a pair of slippers, I also unearthed a bottle of rare brandy which I had set aside for some state occasion. I have never been an habitual drinker of hard liquor, being partial to beer and light wines; but I thought a glass or two of brandy might do her good after her cold swim. Then too I was hoping that the spirit might loosen her tongue and put us on more intimate terms... make us friends.

This accident of Fate, I realized only too well, could never happen again. Therefore I was determined to make good use of the opportunity and not sit there like a ninny, uttering asinine generalizations and getting nowhere. I knew that I must make that night the key which some day would open the door of her heart to me.

I hurried back to the kitchen. Anita had the stove going full blast and already it was comfortably warm. She thanked me for the towels and without further ado, fell to rubbing herself vigorously. As she removed her rubber cap (which I at once recognized as part of my merchandise) her lovely yellow hair cascaded down her neck and shoulders. I had never seen her this way before and she looked so unspeakably beautiful with her hair unbound that I could not withhold an explanation of delight. The urge was strong in me to cast aside all restraint, to take her in my arms; but she was my guest, at the moment helpless, so I refrained. Besides, the inhibitions of civilization are hard to break through. Seldom in my life had I given way to impulse. At the moment, however, I had to summon the full force of my restraint.

She flashed me a quick glance and for a moment I thought she would be angry. I cursed myself silently for a fool. But, instead she laughed and said: “Turn your back. I want to get out of this wet suit.”

“Wait,” I cried. “I'll go, if you like.”

“O, don't bother. I trust you.”

I turned around to face the wall and heard the crisp snap of elastic and the rustle of heavy taffeta. It gave me a pleasant sensation, her saying that she trusted me. It proved that she considered me something more than a chance acquaintance. There was also a breath-taking joy in the knowledge that we were in the same room together while she engaged in the intimate task of drying her naked body. My honorable intentions were somewhat frayed and stretched to the breaking-point. For this reason my voice sounded somewhat high and excited as I spoke to the wall, striving to appear casual and completely at ease. “I'm afraid I haven't much to offer you in the way of refreshment,” I said, “except that brandy on the table or some tea. I never drink coffee.”

“Did you say brandy? Lead me to it! You can turn around now.”

As I obeyed, I started to say, “It's not very good brandy.” I never finished the sentence. That first glimpse of her in my bathrobe—;I'll never be able to forget. The robe was dark blue, matching her exquisite eyes; and her hair, tumbling down it.... But I have resolved not to go into raptures. I am sure that she noticed my appreciative stare for all the time we sipped away at our bandy I felt her eyes on me.

Thirty minutes passed. “Perhaps you're hungry?” I suggested.

“Famished! I could eat a horse.”

“Well, I haven't any horse,” I told her, “but if you like....”

Later, over bacon and scrambled eggs which she had insisted that she prepare herself, I summoned up enough courage to say: “But you haven't told me how you happened to be swimming so late at night. The water was certainly too cold for you to have enjoyed it.”

A slight shadow flitted across her face. “I always go swimming when I'm angry. That's the only way I can get it out of my system. Cold water does wonders to my awful disposition!” She tried to laugh convincingly. Of course she did not suspect that I knew what was wrong. And I never told her that I had heard she had quarreled with Doctor Carpenter.

“I don't believe it!”

She looked up at me with a frown. “What? That I go swimming every time I get a grouch on?”

“No. That you've got an awful disposition.”

She seemed pleased at that. “Oh, you don't know me yet!”

My heart thrilled at the “yet.”

“My misfortune,” I returned, feeling that I was talking like some hackneyed, if gallant, character in a cheap novel. “But how do you manage in winter?”

“Oh, I don't, really. You see I'm from the South where you can get angry as often as you like without catching pneumonia or bunking your head on a cake of ice.”

That got us onto the subject of her past life. I found out that she came from Florida—; Palatka—;and had come North after her father died. “But you don't sound like a Southerner,” I said. “I haven't noticed the slightest trace of an accent.”

“Why should I have?” she retorted. “My dad was an English teacher in the Palatka school. What do you think? Only Yankees can speak the King's English?”

Lest the Civil War break forth anew, I changed the subject.

Another hour flew by. I scarcely realized the passage of time. By virtue of the four fingers of brandy I had consumed, I had grown more bold and I was commencing to call her by her first name. She, sadly, did not reciprocate. I remained, as far as she was concerned, nameless. But this was better than being addressed as “Mr. Thatcher.”

We had discussed at some length the matter of her getting back to Mrs. Michaelson's and had arrived at the decision that she had much better wait until morning. I owned no car and she could not possibly walk that long distance through the streets clad only in bathing costume and wearing my slippers. Furthermore, it would not be right to awaken Mrs. Michaelson at this ungodly hour of the morning and ask her to wrap up one of Anita's dresses. Therefore, it had been agreed that we'd sit up the few remaining hours until daylight, at which time I would pay a call on Mrs. M.

To my way of thinking, Anita proved herself to be a very good sport in her predicament. Should anyone find out that she had been in my house the entire night, clad only in my bathrobe, a dreadful scandal was sure to follow and her name, as far as Ithaca was concerned, would be ruined. Nevertheless, Anita maintained a sublime indifference to this possibility... and even a reckless disregard for the accepted conventions. I must admit that this rather surprised me. I had not thought of Anita as daring.

I remarked that I was spiritually drunk that evening; I am loathe to admit that that was not all. I also become quite drunk with brandy and, I am afraid, so did Anita. As I have explained earlier, I am not accustomed to hard liquors and, in congenially keeping up with my pretty guest, I soon felt my tongue thicken and my head begin to spin. Although my faculties dulled with the alcohol, they did not take leave of me completely and I can remember the events which took place between the time Anita splashed into my life and the moment I first took her into my arms. However, if some of the moments seem vague in description, you may put it down as a combination of too much drink and too many years having elapsed since. But to me, this night stands out with absolute clarity. It was the happiest night in my entire life.

Now nobody respects a drunken woman. Hence, I had better remind you that Anita had every reason to try to drown her sorrows that night. Besides, she did not look or act drunk... except that she cried continually. But her face did not grow red and ugly, and this is funny because I have since witnessed many of Anita's tantrums and she certainly erases her good looks with her tears.

“I hate him! Oh, I hate him!” she kept muttering between racking sobs.

I tried to comfort her as best I could but my soothing words seemed to pass unnoticed. As she babbled on, I found myself unconsciously hanging on her words. I wished to plumb her depths, learn her true feelings. While I recognized that she was not herself and might easily say something she would later regret, I was afforded the delicious sensation of hearing her denounce Leo Carpenter. Her very vehemence as she spoke his name began to infect me. I commenced to hate him, too.

Previously I had regarded his attentions to Anita only with jealousy and distaste; and except for that day in the store when he had tried to induce me to sell him a contraceptive, I harbored no great hatred for the man. After all, he had never been anything but friendly to me and, I daresay, had he suspected how I felt about Anita, he would not have come into my store on such an errand.

Anita's wrath seemed genuine enough and I had no suspicions but that she really despised the man. Had I not been so happy that her love for him had died, I think I would have been a little alarmed at her capacity for enmity.

After her rage had exhausted her and had subsided into dry, body-racking sobs, she leaned forward on the kitchen table with her head buried in her arms. Before her, like some grisly tombstone, stood the empty brandy bottle. She had wrapped the bathrobe so tightly around her body that every line of her form was clearly defined. Through the thin material her breasts showed. They quivered an accompaniment to her choking convulsions.

I moved over to her and stood behind her, stroking her head soothingly as though she were a little child. I put an arm around her shaking shoulders and whispered that it was all right, Carpenter was gone and she would never have to worry about him again. My words, this time, took effect. But not in the way I intended. She began to feel sorry for herself. Wave after wave of self-pity swept over her until she was repeating that old, familiar masterpiece of spoiled children: “Nobody loves me!”

I wanted to do something—;I don't quite know what—;to reassure her. I wanted to pour out my love for her all at once and take the consequences. But... no words came and I found that I couldn't galvanize myself into any action. Finally, I managed to sink to my knees beside her chair and raised her head by tugging at her shoulders. The bathrobe came loose, much to my dismay, and I caught a glimpse of one curved thigh. With her face between my palms, I looked into her wet eyes and said: “You're wrong, Anita. Somebody does love you.”

I don't think that she heard me. If she did, she gave no sign. She continued to sob with her head against my chest and I pressed my lips to her forehead, her cheek and then at last I kissed her mouth.

It may appear disgusting that I should make love to a drunken woman, too befuddled with alcohol to fully realize what was being done to her. But remember that I was drunk myself. Even with this excuse, I am quite ashamed to confess that my marriage was born in such a fashion. You can readily understand why I have kept it a secret until now.

I vaguely recall lifting her in my arms and carrying her up the narrow winding stairs to my bedroom. And she must have been nude, for the next morning I came across my bathrobe lying on the kitchen floor.

Not wishing to delve into intimate details which normally should be discussed only between the parties concerned, it would definitely be misleading if I neglected to mention that when we eventually sobered up, Anita did not appear so very horrified upon finding herself in bed with me. On the contrary, she seemed to accept it as a matter of course and, had I had any regrets for my actions before she became sober, they swiftly took wing at her warm responses to my wooing.

I became thoroughly convinced that she had fallen in love with me. Moreover, if her mind was still filled with resentment because of Doctor Carpenter's desertion, at least she did not mention his name again.

When I returned to the house before ten that day with a bundle of her clothes, Anita was still in bed and sleeping soundly. The covers were tucked tightly under her chin but one arm, round and very white, dangled over the side. I stood and looked at her for a long time, scarcely breathing. I could not believe that such a thing had come to pass, that I, Peter Thatcher, had possessed the one woman in all the world.

It was my plan not to awaken her. Since she no longer was employed at the Knit Shoppe, there was no point in getting her up. But as I deposited her clothes at the foot of the bed and turned to tiptoe out, she called to me.

“What time is it?”

I whirled around and noticed that while she was certainly wide awake, she was keeping her eyes tightly shut. I suppose that she did this out of embarrassment.

“Ten o'clock, Anita,” I stammered. When she said nothing further, I went on, “Is... is there anything I can get you? Some... some tea? There's no coffee in the house.”

“No thanks. Nothing at all.”

“I've brought your clothes.”

“Thanks. I'll get up in a minute.”

“Oh, there's no great rush,” I hurried on to say, lest she think that I wanted her to vacate the premises which, you may be sure, was not my wish. “Stay as long as you like. I.... It's nice having you here.”

“Thanks.”

I did not get to the store before half past ten that morning and furthermore I didn't care. The place did not seem a bit attractive to me and I did something that day that I had never thought of doing before. I watched the clock. My errand-boy, a colored chap by the name of Jiggs, remarked on my obviously distracted manner. “Boss,” he said, “you sure look like somethin' shot at and missed, you do. Yes, sir!”

At five o'clock Anita made an appearance. I had half expected that she would come around to the store. I couldn't think of any reason why she should but... Fortunately there were no customers present and I immediately dispatched Jiggs on some needless errand so that we might have privacy while I proposed to her.

“Anita,” I said after several false starts, “I want you to be my wife.”

I remember that she looked rather haggard and worn. There were faint lines around her lovely eyes. I waited breathlessly for her to give me her answer.

“Why not?” she sighed. And while the tone she employed struck me at the time as being somewhat unenthusiastic for one who was in love, I put it down as just another sign that she had spent an enervating night.

 

We were married quietly on July 4th. I, myself, would have selected another day but she would have none of it. “I planned on getting married on the Fourth and the Fourth it shall be.” Seeing how set she was in this whim, I raised no objection although I did not like the feeling that I was stepping into someone else's shoes. All through the short ceremony I half expected the name Leo to slip from the Justice's tongue instead of my own.

I am not at all a superstitious person. Black cats and ladders and the numeral 13 mean nothing to me. But in retrospect, marrying Anita on the Fourth with firecrackers exploding out of doors and Times headlines reading: VICTORY FOR OUR NAVY IN 2 BATTLES, U-BOATS TWICE ATTACKED OUR TRANSPORTS, OUR WARSHIPS SANK ONE, PERHAPS MORE, seems quite in keeping with the turbulent events that ruined both our lives.

I can recite the contents of that newspaper, The Times of July 4, 1917, almost completely. You see, some practical joker phoned in the news of our wedding, making it sound so important that it was printed on the Society page. Mr. and Mrs. Peter Thatcher were not really “news" then. Now they are—;only not Society news. Murderers and their victims rate much more space. Anyway, on July 4th President and Mrs. Wilson went yachting as far as the mouth of the Potomac, Herbert Hoover warned the public through the medium of the press that “America Must Save to Win War,” Gimbels advertised a Clearance Sale of ladies' parasols, and I married Anita.

No sooner had the ceremony ended, it seemed to me that Anita began to make changes. I suppose all brides do that. I guess they like to have some physical evidence about that by the token of marriage they are effecting a radical metamorphosis not only in their husbands' lives but in his effects as well. For several days following Anita's moving into the house I stumbled over pieces of furniture which she had rearranged and I felt very strange sleeping in what had always been my mother's bedroom. After her death I had never thought of bunking there but had kept my familiar little room at the head of the winding stairs.

“Don't you think that this table would look better over by that window?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, Anita,” I would reply.

“No.... I guess not. I'll try it in that corner.”

“It looks fine there, Anita.”

“Well, it will do for now.”

On one or two occasions I kissed her while we were shifting the furniture back and forth. Despite the dustcloth wound around her head, the old house-dress and a pair of my slippers which were ludicrously large on her feet, she looked very beautiful and I couldn't resist taking her into my arms. However, when I did my best to maneuver her onto the couch, she would push me away gently. “Oh, please, Peter! We're so busy and I'm so tired.”

I think that only a few weeks elapsed between the day we got married and the day I rented the vacant bakery shop adjacent to my store. I had made up my mind to celebrate my good fortune by enlarging the business. Soon the workmen were at work, tearing down the thick wall separating the two shops and while this was going on I could not conduct business. So it was decided that Anita and I would take a belated honeymoon. I suggested Montreal but Anita had ideas of her own.

“I want to spend all the time we can allow ourselves right in New York City. We can go to the theatre every night and eat in the fine restaurants and shop and...” She rambled on and on, becoming more enthusiastic. When I reminded her that New York in summer was scarcely the spot one would select for a vacation, she refused to listen.

Luckily my finances were in good shape so we stopped at the Waldorf. For two weeks we were miserable. The pavement and the walls of the high buildings surrounding us were unbelievably hot that summer and it seemed to me that we were slowly being baked in some great oven. Nevertheless, Anita did not complain and tried to pretend to me that she was enjoying herself.

Every night found us in some stuffy theatre or cafe. We went to the Ziegfield Follies; we sat through “Hitchy-Koo,” gasping for a breath of air while Raymond Hitchcock, Grace LaRue, Leon Errol and Irene Bordoni panted their speeches; but after a matinee of “The Thirteenth Chair,” when Anita expressed the desire to inspect the new William Desmond film—; “The Paws of the Bear” I think—;I emphatically refused. She sulked all evening.

The trip itself would be unimportant had it not marked the birth of Anita's yearning to live in New York. She did not suggest that we move there—;in so many words—;but I was soon to note her waning interest in the alterations I was planning to make in the store. While I was down in the city, I ordered a very fine composition-marble soda fountain and I was justly proud of my purchase. However, when I insisted that Anita accompany me to the showroom to view it, she was totally lacking in enthusiasm.

“It's right down on Fourth Avenue, darling. We can hop a cab and be there in five minutes.”

“I'll see it when it's up in Ithaca, Peter.”

Upon our return home, I lost no time in getting to the store for I wanted to see what progress had been made in my absence. It was still my dream some day to own a very large place—; an elaborate place with a long fountain and red-leather stools and a well-stocked drug department with several clerks in white coats to wait upon customers.

After a cursory inspection, I started home again. Anita had warned me about being late for supper and I had lingered quite a while with Doc Turnbull whom I had chanced to encounter. I hurried along down State Street at a good clip.

It was already growing dark as I passed the railroad station. The lighted windows of a halted Pullman stretched like a string of yellow beads far down the track. The train was preparing to creep out, bound west; its engine snorted at ever decreasing intervals. The few passengers who had alighted passed close to me, sweating beneath their burdens of satchels and valises. They were all headed in the direction from which I had come.

“Travel,” I chuckled to myself, “is not all it's cracked up to be. Moving all the time, packing and unpacking, sleeping in cramped quarters, trying to keep the dust out of your eyes and ears.... They can have it. I'll stay here.”

One of the passengers looked very familiar and as he approached me he saluted me with a cheerful wave of his hand. I squinted in his direction.

It was Leo Carpenter.

 

You can imagine what conflicting emotions took possession of me as I continued toward home. Since my marriage I had not thought of him, so busy was I in accustoming myself to a wedded state. Leo was something out of the past—;a smoked cigarette, a match which had flared for a minute and then been extinguished.

And while Anita, of course, had not forgotten his existence, I was certain that she had dismissed him from her thoughts. That she no longer cared for him, she had proven to me by the solemn act of marriage.

Yet, because we lived in a small community, we would have to rub elbows with him often. It was a delicate situation and I was at a loss to know the proper attitude to adopt. That Leo and Anita had been engaged was common gossip; if we avoided contact with him it would seem as though we were afraid of him. On the other hand, if we accepted him as a friend and allowed him to call at our home, there might be malicious rumors circulated that he still loved her and intended, if he could, to win her away from me.

Naturally I expected Anita to bear him a grudge and refuse to have anything to do with him, but when I informed her that I had seen him, she evinced no anger. Indeed she gave no sign that it mattered one way or the other except that her hand shook a little as she cut me another helping of pie. She offered no comments.

Neither did I ask her for any. Anita, I reasoned, would be capable of deciding what course to pursue. As for myself, comfortably assured of my wife's devotion, it did not matter how we treated Carpenter.

There were two reasons, though, why I wished we could be friends with him. First of all, I felt sorry for the fellow. He had lost what I had won. Then, too, there was the store. Doctor Carpenter was a very good customer. Like old Doc Turnbull, he brought me all his prescription work. That trade alone netted me five hundred dollars a year and, in the event that Anita decided to feud, he would be forced to trade at Cavender's.

The evening after his arrival he came into the place. I could see by his face that the news had reached him. He looked pale and tensely drawn and not at all the dapper man-about-town. Of course our marriage might not have been the cause of it all. He was in mourning clothes. I remembered about his father being ill.

He came straight to the prescription counter with his hand outstretched. “Congratulations, Pete,” he said quietly. “I wish you all the luck in the world. I know you'll make her happy.”

I hardly expected that he would be such a good sport about it. In his place I knew that I would have been absolutely miserable. But then I remembered that he had never loved her—;or so it had struck me. “Thanks, doctor. You bet I will. I suppose it was something of a shock to you, eh? So sudden and all that!”

“Yes. But that's the way things happen, you know. Suddenly.”

I looked at his black suit. “I'm sorry to hear that your...”

He interrupted me before I could get any farther. I could see that he wanted to change the subject. “Hmm. Store looks nice, Pete. But what are you going to put in that big empty place?” He indicated the long, bare strip where I intended to install my fountain when it arrived.

“Secret, Doctor Carpenter. Come in next week and see for yourself.”

But he never did see it. Within a week, Carpenter closed up his big house on the Heights, dismissed all the servants, recommended Doc Turnbull to many of his patients, and enlisted in the army. Although I enlisted shortly after, I never saw him again until a few weeks ago—; September 9, 1937 to be precise—;in his handsome New York City residence.

 

I bluntly admit that I am cowardly by nature; yet, despite this, I was not drafted into the army. I volunteered. This is not a boast but a statement of fact which, I presume, sounds paradoxical. But I have met many like myself at the front who, listening to martial music and the stirring speeches of wartime orators, could not resist rallying to the colors. During many a night in muddy French dug-outs I wondered at this rash act of mine. Volunteering had been so unlike me. At length it dawned on me that I had done it to impress Anita.

This seems to me to be the most logical reason because I have always tried to impress her. I would never have dreamed of confessing my timidity to her and, if she were still alive, I would not be confessing it here. I remember that whenever a situation arose which required firm handling, in her presence I would handle it firmly—;instead of the meek attitude I took when there were no witnesses. I am referring now to the incident of the iceman, shortly after we were married. The man had gotten into an argument with Anita over a late delivery. The food in our ice-chest had spoiled and the tongue-lashing the man received provoked him. He began to shout back at her insolently. I forced myself to step in and ordered the fellow from the house. Curiously enough, he obeyed. As he stood hesitantly in the open door, I shouted: “Get out of here and don't come back!” After he had closed the door, I added ferociously for Anita's benefit: ”... or I'll dust off the furniture with you, you worm!”

All the eligible men in Ithaca were enlisting. Even students from up on the hill and married men who were exempt. Although in my heart I knew that I would make a poor soldier—;being much more valuable at home, keeping people fit—;I was afraid that my reticence would be noticed. I took to circling an entire block to avoid passing the enlistment office on Seneca Street where a pretty town girl was drumming up recruits. However, it did not matter so much what other people thought of me, as long as Anita did not feel ashamed.

One day when I came home from work I thought I'd test her. I figured that her face would give her away if she really thought me a coward. I mentioned the fact that I contemplated joining up.

She did not throw her arms around my neck and beg me not to go as the wives in plays did (and as I had hoped she would do). She merely nodded her approval and said: “Good idea, Peter. Uncle Sam needs everyone. I've been thinking of joining the Red Cross. And don't worry about the store,” she went on quickly, “because that lame Murphy boy has just graduated as a pharmacist. He can look after things until you get back. The war can't last much longer now that we're in it.”

I saw then that there was no getting out of it. I silently cursed myself for having left myself wide open. “But how do you know that Tom Murphy...?”

Oh, don't worry, will you? He said he'd be only too glad to....” She stopped in embarrassment. As my eyebrows went up in surprise, she rushed on, “Oh, I knew you'd want to enlist sooner or later. So I thought I'd sound him out before Ray Cavender thought of it.”

The following day as I stood in line before the recruiting office she waited to one side. I remember that she was smiling—;not broadly, but only with the corners of her mouth—;as though something amused her. I think that she might have suspected my meek spirit and half-expected that I would make a break and run for it before it was too late! Of course, I did no such thing; although I don't mind admitting that I would have liked to have done so—;and probably would have, had I not foreseen the disgrace resulting from such an act.

So I signed the enlistment papers with a great show of unconcern, easily passed the physical examination, and rejoined Anita at the curb. As we walked down Seneca toward North Albany where young Murphy lived, my chest swelled with pride and my knees felt curiously weak.

“Well. Peter,” smiled Anita, “you're in the army now.”

“Yes,” I replied.

A few days later I received orders assigning me to Camp Mills, out on Long Island, for training. I was to leave immediately. At the station many of the men were hoping that their wives would not cry. Something told me that Anita would not; but I was not so sure about myself....

 

Anyway, late 1917 found me in France, a very bewildered apothecary armed with a rifle in place of the familiar pestle. And a more peculiar soldier never buttoned an ill-fitting uniform blouse over a quaking heart. My quiet garden and the lake now were replaced by a filthy trench, a sea of mud, tangled wire and the grim, ploughed furrows of war.

I will not bore you by going into a long dissertation on the causes, results and horrors of international strife. More capable persons have tried it before me to no avail. To the young, the exempt or the uninitiated, war seems an adventure, a thrilling episode during which one has the rare opportunity of becoming a hero. If that is so, all I can say is that it was a thrill and an adventure I would prefer not having again. And I am certainly not alone in this.

Oh, yes, I can understand the quickening of the pulse whenever a flag goes by and how handsome the boys look in their khaki and steel helmets. But it is easy to feel heroic at home, far from the awful front, surrounded by friends and pretty girls. I think that if recruits were allowed one day of fighting before finally electing to join the army, no country would be able to raise troops.

But this is not a war story; it is a confession, if you wish to call it that, of what led me to commit the crime of which I am supposed to be guilty, and the war plays no part in it with the exception of two incidents. One of them is the shell-shock I suffered; the other I relate here.

In my company were three men to whom I became very much attached. Two of them—;Carter and Mullins—;were privates like myself. The third was a huge fellow by the name of Wilkinson, my platoon sergeant. War and the ever-present threat of death can forge close friendships, even among people from different walks of life; but, I maintain, pinochle can forge closer ones. We played through more than seven months of front-line fire—;the four of us—; and it helped. At first I could not keep my mind on the cards with the low rumble of the big guns and the occasional screams of the German “minnies” in my ears; but when I saw how unperturbed the others seemed, I felt ashamed to flinch and soon I became almost as hardened to sounds as they were.

Strange how four men can get together and become friends with no more in common than a ragged deck of cards! Carter, in peace time, was a shoe salesman; Mullins, a landscape gardener; and Wilkinson, a policeman on the Yonkers force. Only infrequently did they mention their professions. Carter once delivered a long and obscene monologue on the subject of his regulation shoes. “I think they put hobnails on the inside, too!” he grumbled. Mullins once or twice commented briefly on the ravished landscape; and Sergeant Wilkinson, or “Sarge” as we called him, never felt at home with a Springfield. At those times when we had to mount the firing-step, he would pop away with his treasured police revolver. I would stand beside him, firing round after round, hoping that I was not hitting anyone.

For war or no war, the world safe or unsafe for democracy, I could not bring myself to want to kill anybody. Pointing a gun at a person and pressing the trigger was still murder to my way of thinking. The knowledge that I was legally entitled to do it did not seem to make the slightest particle of difference. I did not hate anyone. Why should I kill?

Perhaps this was not a very patriotic attitude to take. Maybe I should have taken a certain pride in killing off my country's enemies. But I couldn't help feeling that the enemy ranks contained many young men like myself into whose unwilling hands guns had been thrust. My own life, up until the war broke out, had been spent in trying to relieve pain, not to inflict it. But when I broached this subject, the Sarge sniffed. “Either you fill their bellies with lead or they fill yours. Take your pick.” I solved the problem by keeping carefully out of the line of fire whenever possible and by trying to miss each shot it was my military duty to fire.

One night in October, a second lieutenant came into our dug-out and asked us to volunteer for a wire-cutting detail. “If you don't make too much noise, there shouldn't be any trouble. The Boche are in Exermont, drinking schnapps and eating pigs' knuckles and sauerkraut. I haven't the foggiest notion why this wire must be cut unless we're going to attack... but orders are orders.”

The Sarge nodded affably and asked, “Is it all right with you guys?”

Carter reached for his shoes without a word. Mullins, in disgust, threw his cards face-up on the table. “You would have to come in now and bust up the first decent hand I've had in a month!” he grunted to the lieutenant.

I hesitated a second. Venturing out into no-man's-land was something I was not particularly anxious to do. But I felt four sets of eyes turn my way. I tried my best to appear unafraid of the task which, I knew very well, was within my province to refuse. “Oh, hell,” I said flippantly but with trembling lips, I'm afraid. “Why not? I could use a breath of air.”

A shallow attempt at bravado but no one seemed to notice.

A few minutes later the four of us squirmed over the trench parapet and wiggled toward the wire entanglements. Luckily it was very dark and the enemy opposite us were firing Very lights only once in a great while. Notwithstanding, I was terribly frightened; so much so, that when I caught my wrap-arounds on a strand of wire, I lost my head and yanked them free with a loud ripping noise. Carter, Mullins and the Sarge flung themselves face-downward on the soggy ground and lay still. I quickly followed suit and heard Wilkinson cursing me roundly under his breath. But when nothing happened, we resumed our cautious crawling. My heart was pounding so hard against my chest that I felt certain it could be heard by anyone within a mile of us.

When at length we reached the wire we had been instructed to cut, the four of us went into a whispered conference on our bellies. “You go off to the right, Thatcher,” the Sarge muttered between his teeth, “and get into a shell-hole. Keep your eye peeled. For Chris' sake don't go to sleep. The Heinies may have a party out, too. Mullins, you mosey over to that stump on the left. Carter and I will tackle the wire.”

I was very glad to crawl into that shell-hole, believe me; and while I didn't like the idea of being separated from the others, I was infinitely grateful that I would be out of danger if shooting began. However, no sooner did I flatten myself at the muddy bottom of the hole when I felt something rub against my knee. Squinting into the inky darkness, I drew my trench-knife, believing that I might have to kill a rat. At that moment someone decided to fire up a light.

I was lying beside a German private!

He seemed as surprised as I was. We gaped open-mouthed at one another's uniforms. Terror froze the blood in my veins for an instant; then it galvanized me into action. I suddenly became conscious of what I held in my hand and, as he muttered something guttural, I drove the trench-knife deep into his neck.

When you took up this book you expected a confession. Well, now you've got one. That deed, in my own estimation, was a murder. You disagree? It was self-defense? It really wasn't anything of the kind. He had no weapon in his hand; neither did he show any sign that he meant to attack me. But you still think I was right in killing him? I'm sorry, but I don't understand such reasoning. If only someone would explain it to me! Killing Anita who deserved to die—;that was a crime? Killing a boy whose only fault was having been born in Germany—;that was not?

Twenty years have passed since that awful night and this outrageous misinterpretation of justice still remains to plague my logic. I have asked everyone—;priests, convicts, judges, cops —;but no one seems to know. Well, never mind.

Ten short minutes seemed an eternity. I lay beside the man I had killed, waiting for some signal from the Sarge. The enemy were firing many more Verys now and that, I suppose, was the reason for the delay. I tried to keep my eyes off the corpse but it was a difficult feat in that small area. In my hand I still clutched the knife and, as light after light went up, I stared horrified at the sticky blood that covered my hand up to the wrist. I tried to wipe it off on my pants.

My three comrades found me that way. The Sarge looked down at the body and then patted me on the shoulder. “Nice work,” he said in a whisper. “You got him in the right place, kid. There was a Fritz party out tonight. This guy must've been a look-out. We saw 'em in time. If this baby had opened his yap, we'd all of us be pushin' up the daisies now.” Then he callously began to search the dead man's pockets. “Got to look for maps and stuff,” he explained. “Of course, he ain't carryin' any. He's only a buck from the rear rank. But he might have a stogie on him or a pack of butts.”

The next morning while I was shaving, I remembered that I had taken a life. I peered at my reflection in the steel mirror, wondering how much the deed had changed me. I knew that I had changed inside... but outside I looked the same.

On the night of October 4, 1918 we made our bid for Exermont. I should say, they made their bid; for I deserted.

Deserted in the face of the enemy. Say it. Go ahead, I don't care. I had had enough of the war. But before you condemn me, imagine what might have happened if everybody had followed my example. There would have been no more war. There would have been nothing left to shoot at.

I lagged behind when we reached that ruined cemetery on the outskirts of Exermont village. Machine-gun bullets were kicking up all around us and shells were dropping, cutting off a retreat. I don't know when the notion struck me that we were walking toward sudden and certain death, but I was sure that nothing—;not even a blade of grass—;could escape that heavy rain of lead. Taking advantage of the fact that it was dark and there was a lot of confusion, I ducked into a convenient shell-hole and allowed what was left of my company to go on without me.

The last thing I can remember before I came to my senses in the little French hospital was the ever-increasing whine of some great shell. A five-point-nine. I could identify it by its sound. As it came down upon me, making my ears vibrate, I tried to press my body into the wet earth. My fingers frantically dug into the ground; my eyes filled with mud; my teeth clenched until they hurt; and my bowels opened....

 

Every soldier falls in love with his nurse. I, not much of a military man anyway, did not. The war had not caused me to forget Anita and, despite her very infrequent letters, my thoughts were ever full of her. Yet, somehow, the picture was blurred, pleasurably blurred if you wish, the imperfections blotted out. Moments dwelt on in memory, moments very often of the flesh; memories of moments only to be whispered when we were alone together. Desire is an insidious parasite gnawing at one's body. And so, paradoxically enough, although it was Anita who kept me away from women who could be had for the taking, women like the pockmarked roads of France over which an army marched, it was also Anita who made me glaringly conscious of a need for women. Celibacy is the pathway to depraved thoughts, even as war is the pathway to power of depraved minds. The very fact that Anita wrote so seldom made me want her more. Man usually kills the thing he loves, and cherishes that which ultimately destroys him. In the trenches, with death ever near like a white bird flying, it was not so hard to hold one's emotions in check. So frantically were we endeavoring to cling to life, we wooed and clung to her as though she were our mistress. Then, too, we could always look forward to being relieved, new troops to supplant us in this war that was merely a prelude to all other wars, and then —;a few days in Paris. Actually, the fact that few of us ever got to Paris was of little importance. Paris was a symbol. It represented any woman's arms.

Lest you suspect otherwise and visualize my nurse as some homely harridan, I would like to make it clear that Mademoiselle Monet was a very attractive person, one with whom many a man might fall in love. And pray do not think that I was viewing her with the astigmatic eyes of war which distorted everything. My nurse was truly beautiful.

Furthermore, Gilberte Monet was in love with me.

How this happened, I cannot explain. There have been many jokes made about French girls. There is the story that they considered it a patriotic duty to sleep with each and every one of the Allied troops from the brigadier generals right on down the line. Gilberte was not one of those and her love for me in no way hinged upon my uniform. Well, whatever her reason for loving me, I only know that when I eventually became aware that I was in a long, white ward, a friendly-looking dark-eyed girl in nurse's garb was bending over the bed and whispering some strange, incomprehensible syllables which she later told me meant: “So you are awake at last, my darling.”

Her voice was gentle, soothing like the voice of a mother speaking softly to her frightened little boy who lay hurt and shivering on his bed, shrinking from imagined horrors. And I was that boy—;but the horrors were ghastly realities. No war has ever been won, not even by the conquerors; and how can one describe that gray, terror-splashed tumult that rages in the frontiers of the mind; that frontier where reason locks with reality? Beyond the trenches lies a region like unto the world in the beginning, without form and void. This I know, for I have been there.

Yes, Gilberte Monet loved me and it was good to be loved; especially good while I lay broken mentally and physically, afraid to die, yet more afraid to live in a world gone mad.

You may laugh if you like. I wouldn't blame you at all. It does seem ludicrous that I, a timid, small-town druggist could so play havoc with a woman's heart. I am certainly no Don Juan.

I was the only American in the hospital and I must have been there quite a long time because none of the other patients were there when I was brought in. The first thing I learned was that the Armistice had been signed and that the war was at an end. You may be sure I rejoiced. But the news that my entire company had been wiped out at Exermont greatly disheartened me.

Although I was out of danger of death, my mind was periodically unsound and my memory as well. Sometimes for hours I would forget who I was, in which ward I belonged and the name of my nurse. During those periods I would suffer indescribable mental anguish until Nurse Monet came to claim me. I would always recognize her and in a minute everything would become clear again. I took to wheeling my chair after her wherever she went. She did not seem to mind.

Many evenings the nurse and I would be in the hospital garden. It was very lovely there with the green lawn and the cultivated flower beds and the stone fountain which played incessantly. She would sit beside my wheel-chair and coax me to sing to her. My nasal interpretations of “K-K-K-Katy” and “Over There” sent her into fits of laughter and she never seemed to tire of them. I would laugh with her until my shrapnel wounds began to hurt. To this day, whenever I undress for bed and notice the scars on my left leg and thigh, I think of the evenings in the garden with Gilberte Monet.

One evening in particular would be much better forgotten; and I would not mention it all were it not for my firm resolution to be frank. It happened so naturally and so sweetly that I can scarcely believe it was an adultery. Yet.... It will be hard to describe. I can only tell you what we did—;and that may sound very ordinary—;but what we did and what that night did to me is the important issue. That half-hour has since served as a standard by which I weigh love to ascertain its value. Gilberte's love was real, not feigned. It could, and did, weather anything —;even her realization that I could not reciprocate.

Yes, she gave herself to me. And what is more, no one cared. Who cared what anyone did during those topsy-turvy years—;like roulette with the play for human chips? The hospital staff was too preoccupied with a macabre puzzle to be disturbed over absurdities connected with a normal human function. They were attempting to put wrecks of men together again and, far too frequently, important pieces were missing.

And the important missing part in my own case was Anita. Gilberte helped me to fill that gap, for which I shall be eternally grateful. My only regret is the night I am trying to describe. There, and there only, did we overstep the boundaries beyond which we should never have passed. If I had loved Gilberte and not been in love with another woman it would have been quite all right. But I never loved her and, since she loved me, it must have hurt her no end to discover that she was merely receiving the crumbs from Anita's table.

However, it is too late to think about such things now. Even if we had known, I doubt if we could have prevented what happened. Before either of us realized quite what was happening, we found ourselves stretched full-length on a secluded strip of lawn, protected by the enveloping darkness. Gilberte's uniform was unfastened at the breast and my cheek rested on her satiny flesh. I became suffused with a warm glow and the intoxicating belief that nothing mattered but this one very human moment. I kissed her on the mouth—;the first time I had ever done so. She responded by tightening her grip and literally melting to me. I removed one arm from under her and in a few seconds nothing—;not a shred of clothing—;separated us.

“I love you, Gilberte,” I moaned again and again.

But, even at that time, while I held a woman in my arms for the first time in almost two years, I knew I was lying. But, somehow, that seemed the only proper thing to say.

The greater portion of the A.E.F. sailed for home on the Leviathan and other ships late in March of 1919; but I was still in no condition to make such a long trip. I'd sit in my wheelchair, staring off into space, and think about Anita—;how she was, what she was doing, and wondering why she didn't answer my letters.

It was my custom to write her each week. Gilberte provided me with paper and pen and ink; and later she would take the letters to post when she went off duty. I remember the first time I handed her a finished letter she glanced curiously at the name and the address.

“Your mothair?” she asked in her broken English.

“No,” I replied, not realizing I was being cruel, “my wife.” And not satisfied with that, I pulled out the picture of Anita I always carried in my breast pocket. “How do you like her, Gilberte? Isn't she lovely?”

She took the picture from my hand and studied it intently. There was a look in her eyes like some hurt animal and instantly I was ashamed of myself. Knowing how the girl felt about me, I should have known better.

“Vairy nize,” she murmured and returned it. I saw a tell-tale sparkle under her lowered lids.

Now please don't think for a minute that I am manufacturing this story out of whole cloth.

I can find no explanation for her misguided affections. I certainly did nothing to inspire them. The only observation I might truthfully make is that love is mighty strange and ofttimes somewhat silly. But to prove that Mademoiselle Monet was a real person and not a figment of a distorted imagination, you have only to look up the transcript of my trial in Tompkins County. One of the prosecution's major exhibits was a letter in the French language, addressed to me and signed by her. I never found out what the letter contained until I heard it translated in open court. Yes, it was a love letter. I ought to know, because it helped to convict me.

Gilberte showed her love for me in a way to which I could not possibly object. She did not try to kiss me, caress me or hug me; and pray do not imagine nightly assignations after the other patients in the ward were asleep; she was just over-kind and ever willing to go out of her way to please me. When she spoke of her love at all, it was quietly and in her own language, which I could not understand. Of course, there was no mistaking the meaning of her words. Behind them whispered something else—;an international esperanto which no one could fail to have recognized.

And if, while she administered my sponge-baths, she lingered a little longer than was strictly necessary, what was so wrong in that? She liked to fuss over me like some mother with a child. In the garden on some of the nights when we were alone, she'd lean her head on my shoulder or carry one of my hands to her breast. It was done so sweetly and so lacking in the frenzied sex quality that endowed many of the other women nurses in the hospital, that I was deeply moved. I daresay had I not already lost my heart to Anita... but that's the way it was.

Have I made myself clear? Except for that night during the early spring, there was nothing between us. And it was not Gilberte's fault that there happened even that. If anyone was the aggressor—;it was I. Do not, please, get the impression that she egged me on. Her love was on a higher plane and sex was not paramount. I still have the feeling that I soiled something, strode ruthlessly across a priceless tapestry with muddy shoes.

Now, I often regret that I didn't find out more about Nurse Monet; but at the time, you can understand, my mind was flooded with thoughts of my wife and her picture blotted out everything else or threw them out of perspective. As it was, I merely tolerated Gilberte. She was merely an audience attending a nightly eulogy of Anita. Knowing where I stand now, I am sorry that I paid her so little attention. I must have been exceedingly cruel; especially do I regret taking her. If, by some chance, she ever comes across this book, I hope that she will believe me when I say that I will always hold her memory very dear. I get a little comfort by telling myself that, although she was a few years older than myself, she was still a young woman and I, probably, was merely a fleeting fancy.

But to continue, it was not for several months that I found out Gilberte was not mailing my letters to Anita. This made me very angry because, you remember, my company had been recorded as wiped out and Anita had no way of knowing that I was still alive. I found out one afternoon when Gilberte was shifting her quarters. The other nurses were lending her a hand with the heavier paraphernalia. I would have liked to have helped her myself, because I was very fond of Gilberte, but I was permitted only to sit in my wheel-chair out in the corridor and watch the proceedings.

The lid of her trunk was open as they staggered out into the hall with it. The letters were in the tray—;all of them—;tied neatly into a packet. At first I only stared at them in astonishment. There could be no mistaking my peculiar style of penmanship. And as the trunk passed my chair, I got a chance to inspect them at closer range. None of them had been opened.

I am thankful that I had both the control and the good taste to wait until the moving was over and the other nurses had gone before confronting Gilberte with my discovery. At first she denied it vigorously; but when I rolled myself into her new room and took the packet from the trunk to wave it in front of her nose, she began to cry.

“Why did you do it?” I demanded furiously. “Answer me, you little sneak!”

I am sure she didn't understand what I was saying and this made me angrier than ever. My temper completely got the better of me and I did something I had never dreamed of doing to a woman before: I struck, her across the mouth with the back of my hand.

Poor woman, if only I could erase the mark of that blow! If only there was something, some sort of antidote for the deeds we do in this world without thinking! What she had done she had only done because she loved me. Probably I would have done the same, had I been in her position. But it was several hours before I cooled off and realized this.

That very night I wrote to Anita again. This time I posted the letter myself. The staff raised a frightful rumpus when they discovered I had wheeled myself all the way into the village to the postmaster, and, I must admit, not without just cause. I returned to the hospital totally spent and for the following two weeks I had to be confined to my bed. Throughout this brief relapse, Nurse Monet continued to care for me. I don't think that she bore me any grudge for my having struck her. Nevertheless, I found out later that she had put in an application for a change of ward and been refused.

 

Before I was finally discharged from the hospital I wrote some ten or twelve letters to Anita and received two in reply. I am still in possession of them. The paper on which they are written is yellowed with the years and the ink has faded until the writing is almost illegible. Intrinsically they are worth nothing; however, I think that if I copy them here, they might explain themselves and also how I felt when I first read them. In this way I might possibly be able to transfer to you the intangible mental unrest I suffered because of them.

The first was a short note, written in a great hurry on a piece of Ithaca Hotel stationery. It ran:

 

June 3, 1919

Dear Peter,

I am so glad to hear that you are alive and getting along nicely. Of course, I am sorry to hear that you've been wounded but I think you are very lucky to have gotten away so easily, don't you? You know that the newspapers listed you in the casualties and getting a word from you was like receiving a communication from a ghost. As a matter of fact, I have been wearing mourning clothes for over two months. And oh, Peter, I've been so dreadfully lonesome here in Ithaca since the Armistice. I haven't been outside this house in almost three weeks... except to do my shopping. Please write to me and let me know your plans. By all means do not leave the hospital until you have been pronounced completely well. If it is advisable that you remain another month or two, don't disregard the doctors. I can wait. And don't, for heaven's sake, try anything juvenile like surprising me.

Your wife,

Anita.

 

There were two things that immediately struck me as being strange about the letter. The first was the curious absence of the word “love.”

She had not even said, “Your loving wife.” The second was that while the stationery bore the insignia of the familiar Ithaca Hotel, the envelope was stamped with the incongruous postmark of New York City. If she had not been out of the house, how then could this letter have been mailed more than two hundred and fifty miles away? This worried me considerably.

Her next and last letter I received just as I was preparing to leave the hospital, bound for Paris. I thrust it into my pocket unopened, deciding to read it after I had said my goodbyes. I had made arrangements with the driver of a produce lorry to take me in with him on one of his semi-weekly trips to the capital and he was parked before the main gate, impatiently punching the rubber bulb of his horn.

Hurriedly, I bade farewell to everyone—;doctors, nurses, orderlies—;but Gilberte I could not find. At the risk of having the lorry proceed without me, I raced through the entire hospital, thrusting my neck into every room much to the annoyance of staff and patients. Just as I was about to give up hope, I spotted her sitting alone at the far end of the garden. I could see by her posture that there was something wrong. Her shoulders sagged disconsolately.

“Gilberte!” I called as I hurried over to her. “I'm leaving now. Didn't you know? I've been searching all over for you. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving without saying goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” she said apathetically.

I looked at her in astonishment. We had long since made up after our quarrel about the letters and this passive attitude on her part puzzled me. I raised her chin with one finger but she steadfastly refused to meet my eyes.

“What's wrong, Gilberte?” I asked. “Aren't you sorry to see me go? We've been such good friends and all that. I'm going to miss you, you know.”

“That is nize,” she replied dully.

It was then that I noticed her hands. They were clenched tightly in her lap. The knuckles were white and the skin covering them was stretched taut, almost to the point of being transparent. Her eyes she kept fixed on the ground. Though her cheeks were pale and her lips quivered at the corners, I knew that she had not been crying. I was glad of that, at least.

I moved to take her in my arms but she turned her head away. “Please,” she whispered, “don't kiss me.” There was a harsh, but barely audible, agony in her voice which brought a lump into my throat. At that moment I knew the full tragedy of war. War injects the virus of sadness into the veins of all and the innocent suffer along with the guilty. Sometimes I feel that the dead are the fortunate for they, at least, no longer have to look upon the wreckage.

The lorry driver began to honk away with renewed vigor. I knew that if I kept him any longer he was sure to drive off without me. Under my breath I cursed the restless fellow and, stooping quickly, I kissed Gilberte's forehead and ran to the road without a backward glance.

Needless to say, I felt very sad. Instinctively, I was aware that I would never see Nurse Monet again. My heart was cold with misgivings, as though some strange, dark traveller had passed close by and I had felt the swish of his cloak.

Once beside my heavily-moustached companion, I turned for a last glimpse of her but the thick foliage above the low garden wall cut off the view.

As the lorry rattled and banged along the rural roads, quaking in every inch of its ancient frame, I tore open Anita's letter. This, too, was short. The handwriting was a scrawl, almost childish in its carelessness.

 

July 22, 1919

Dear Peter,

Received your letters and am happy to note that you have recovered from your illness. I have some great news for you which ought to cheer you up. The Great Eastern Drug Company is interested in buying the store! They are offering an incredible sum. You know that that is the chain with drugstores in almost every city and town east of the Mississippi. We can consider ourselves fortunate that they are interested in our place rather than Cavender's. Probably, after they take over, they'll force him out of business. Peter, maybe if we sell the store we can live in New York. What do you think of that? You can open a place there,- you know. We can talk about it some more when I see you. Cable me what boat you'll be on and I'll meet you at the dock.

Anita.

 

That's all there was. I turned the letter over and over in my hands, searching for something that was not there....

Again no word of love.