"Not once. Something's set her against me; something's changed her. She never used to be that sort—never!"
"And you insist all this is without rhyme or reason?"
"Without one jot of reason. That's what made it so hopeless. And last night when I heard of this accident I put my pride in my pocket, and tried still again. It was the same thing over again. They seemed to take me for a crank, or paranoeic of some kind, up there at the hospital. And then I gave up. I felt I'd about reached the end of my rope. I thought it all over, quite calmly, and decided to end everything. I walked the streets half the night, then I sat down and decided to blow my brains out. But I couldn't do it. I was too much of a coward. I hadn't the courage."
"That would have been very foolish," was my inadequate reply, for at a bound my thoughts went back to the night before and the scene in the square.
"Well, what would you have done?" was the prompt and bitter challenge of the unhappy youth facing me.
I thought for a moment before attempting to answer him.
"Why," I temporized, "I'd have tried to get down to the root of the mystery. I'd have made some effort to find out the reason for it; for everything seems to have a reason, you know."
Again I heard him emit his listless little scoff of misery.
"There's no reason," he declared.
"There must be," I maintained.