To hush his weird lament, Dolores sank down upon the hassock which never more would rest a pair of shrunken legs; dragged the wretched alien out from under the chair; stroked and patted him.
“He didn’t intend that Jack should die for him,” she interceded. “He didn’t intend anything—any more than I intended that my mother should die for me. I try not to hate him. I am sure Jack would know and be distressed if I did. He’s just a foolish puppy.”
“‘And what is folly, but a riotous expenditure of will?’” muttered John. His hand sought the head of the dog for the importuned caress, but spasmodically clasped around Dolores’. He leaned toward her, although with eyes turned away, as he continued to quote: “‘There are to will and to have your will. There are your social ideas, your immoderate desires, your excesses, your pleasures that end in death, your sorrows that quicken the pace of life. For pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure.’”
Then he looked at her. His eyes, dark and brilliant through a surface film, asked her consideration. Never had she seen such misery. She had thought it could only be felt in the heart.
“Do you believe that?” he demanded. “Is the pain that is wrecking me only a form of pleasure?”
Dolores doubted her voice, but she forced it. It sounded unsteady as her thoughts. “I wish I knew what to say. I—I cannot endure to see you so unhappy. I wish I knew——”
“There is no heartbreak except deliberate sin. That I keep telling myself,” he interrupted. “If I am true to Jack’s trust, true to myself, true to you——”
His hand slid to her wrist; hesitated there.
“But with the best I can do I am breaking. Everything has combined to weaken my resistance. Jack, who was your protector, died and immediately after him the canary. To-night the clock that has not missed a minute for three generations of us—even the old clock gives up.”
“Do you remember what Jack said,” Dolores reminded, “that nothing is wasted? Maybe——”