She smiled evasively, remembering her promise to Mrs. Squires.

He hesitated again, and then spoke with an effort.  “Well, it was hell!” he said grimly.

“I know”—­she was very gentle, full of understanding and sympathy—­“but you went through it bravely.”

“I stuck to her.”  His hand clenched while he answered.  Then, after a pause in which she watched him struggle against some savage instinct for secrecy, he added quietly:  “If she were alive to-day, I’d be sticking to her still.”

“You must have loved her.”  It was all she could think of to say, and yet the words sounded trite and canting as soon as she had uttered them.

Lifting his head quickly, he made a contemptuous gesture of dissent.  “No, it wasn’t that.  I never loved her, except, perhaps, just at the first.  But there’s something that comes before love, I guess.  I don’t know what it is, but there’s something.  It may be just plain doggedness, but after I married her there wasn’t anything on top this earth that could have made me give up and let go.  As soon as I found what I was up against—­it was morphine—­I knew I’d either got to fight it out or be a quitter, and I’ve never been a quitter.  Until she got so bad she had to be shut up I kept a home for her out there in Colorado, and I lived with her in hell as long as she wasn’t too bad to be out of a hospital.  Then I brought her on here and we found a private place down on Long Island where she stayed till she died—­”

“And you still saw her?”

“Except when I was out West, and that’s where I was most of the time, you know.  My work was out there, and there’s nothing like hell behind you to keep you running.  I made piles of money those years.  That’s all I ever cared for about money—­just making it.  I’d fight the devil to get it, but after I’ve once got it, I’ll give it to the first fool who comes begging.  But the getting of it is great.”

“How long did it last?”

“My marriage?  Going on eighteen years.  She was down on Long Island for the last ten of them.”

“Then you lived with her eight.  Was she always—­always-”

“Took it before I ever married her, and I found it out in a month.  She wasn’t so much to blame as you might think,” he pursued thoughtfully.  “You see she had a tough time of it, and she was little and weak, and everything was against her.  She came out West first to teach school, and then she got mixed up with some skunk of a man who pretended to marry her when he had a wife living in Chicago, and after that I guess she went on taking a dope just to keep up her spirits and ease the pain of some spinal trouble she’d had since she was a child.  There was nothing bad in her—­she was just weak—­and I began to feel sorry for her, and so I did it.  If I had it to do over again, I’m not so sure I’d act differently.  She was a poor little creature that didn’t have any man to look after her, and I was just muddling along anyway, thinking about money.  Heaven knows what would have become of her if I hadn’t happened along when I did.”