“How did it happen?” Lawanne asked.

“I was sitting here talking to her,” Mills said.  “There was nothing wrong—­unless it’s wrong for a man to love a woman and tell her so.  I found her sitting here, crying.  She wouldn’t tell me why.  And I suppose maybe that stirred me up.  I hadn’t meant to start it again—­because we’d had that out long ago.  But I tried to persuade her to go away with me—­to make a fresh start.  I wanted her—­but I’ve been doing that for a long time.  She’s only stuck to this Bland—­because—­oh, I don’t know why.  I don’t savvy women.  She liked me.  But not enough.  I was trying to persuade her to break loose.  I don’t remember—­maybe I had hold of her hand.  A man doesn’t remember when he’s begging for a chance.  I don’t know where he came from.  Maybe he heard what I was saying.  Maybe it just didn’t look good to him.  I know his face was like a wild man’s when I saw him in the door.”

Mills paused to catch his breath.  The words tumbled out of him as if he had much to say and knew his time was short.

“Don’t think he meant to kill her.  He popped me.  Then she screamed and jumped in front of me with her arms out—­and he gave it to her.”

Mills’ voice broke.  His fingers stroked feebly at the twisted coils of Myra’s pale, honey-colored hair.  His lips quivered.

“Finished.  All over—­for both of us.  Butchered like beef by a crazy fool.  Maybe I’m crazy too,” he said in a husky whisper.  “It don’t seem natural a man should feel like I’ve felt for months.  I didn’t want to feel like that.  Couldn’t help it.  I’ve lived in hell—­you won’t savvy, but it’s true.  I’m glad it’s over.  If there is any other life—­maybe that’ll be better.  I hope there isn’t.  I feel as if all I want is to sleep forever and ever.  No more laying awake nights thinking till my head hurts and my heart is like a lump of lead.  By God, I have been crazy.”

His body began to sag, and Hollister knelt beside him and supported him.  He shook his head when Lawanne offered him a drink.  His eyes closed.  Only the feeble motion of his fingers on the dead woman’s face and the slow heave of his breast betokened the life that still clung so tenaciously to him.

He opened his eyes again, to look at Hollister.

“I used to think—­dying—­was tough,” he whispered.  “It isn’t.  Like going—­to sleep—­when you’re tired—­when you’re through—­for the day.”

That was his last word.  He went limp suddenly and slid out of Hollister’s grasp.  And they let him lie, a dead man beside the dead woman on the floor.  They stood up themselves and stared at the bodies with that strange incredulity men sometimes feel in the face of sudden death.