“You’re being badly advised, Sabina.  I never thought to hear you talk like this.  Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m here myself annoys you.  Will you let my lawyer see you?”

“Marry me—­marry me—­you that loved me.  All less than that is insult.”

“We must leave it, then.  Would you like me to see my child?”

“See him!  Why?  You’ll never see him if I can help it.  You’d blast his little, trusting eyes.  But I won’t drown him—­you needn’t fear that.  I’ll fight for him, and find friends for him.  There’s a few clean people left who won’t make him suffer for your sins.  He’ll live to spit on your grave yet.”

Then she left the room, and he got up and went from the house.

BOOK II

ESTELLE

CHAPTER I

THE FLYING YEARS

But little can even the most complete biography furnish of a man’s days.  It is argued that essentials are all that matter, and that since one year is often like another, and life merely a matter of occasional mountain peaks in flat country, the outstanding events alone need be chronicled with any excuse.  But who knows the essential, since biographists must perforce omit the spade work of life on character, the gradual attrition or upbuilding of principles under experience, and the strain and stress, that, sooner or later, bear fruit in action?  Even autobiography, as all other history, needs must be incomplete, since no man himself exactly appreciated the vital experiences that made him what he is, or turns him from what he was; while even if the secret belongs to the protagonist, and intellect and understanding have enabled him to grasp the reality of his progress, or retrogression, he will be jealous to guard such truths and, for pride, or modesty, conceal the real fountains of inspiration that were responsible for progress, or the temptations to error that found his weakest spots, blocked his advance, and rendered futile his highest hopes.  The man who knows his inner defeats will not declare them honestly, even if egotism induces an autobiography; while the biographist, being ignorant of his hero’s real, psychological existence, secret life, and those thousand hidden influences that have touched him and caused him to react, cannot, with all the will in the world to be true, relate more than superficial truths concerning him.

Ten years may only be recorded as lengthening the lives of Raymond Ironsyde, Sabina Dinnett and their son, together with those interested in them.  Time, the supreme solvent, flows over existence, submerging here, lifting there, altering the relative attitudes of husband and wife, parent and child, friend and enemy.  For no human relation is static.  The ebb and flow forget not the closest or remotest connection between members of the human family; not a friendship or interest stands still, and not a love