"'I do.'
"'Marry me.'
"'Oh, I want to—oh, I want to marry you,' sobbed poor Cynthy.
"'Then marry me. I'm not good enough—but I know no other man who is.'
"'Oh—Roger—Roger—you are good enough for me—you are good enough for me. But you are not good enough for my children. You are not good enough to be the father of my son.'
"I think we all knew then that it was useless. There was no answer and we were too startled to say anything. Roger grew white and the strength seemed to leave his body. His eyes filled with horror and fright.
"'Cynthy, sweetheart—' he moaned and she flew to comfort him. She let him hold her and kiss her. Then she drew his head down and kissed his hair, his eyes, his lips. She laid his hands against her cold white cheeks, then crushed them to her lips and fled.
"Roger never saw her again.
"She went away and was gone a long time. I got letters every now and then from out-of-the-way places.
"For five years I was happy. It was hard to live without Cynthy. But Roger had left town and Dick was good to me. I knew that the shock of Roger's tragedy had kept him from touching anything those five years. But as time passed and memories faded I grew afraid once more. Dick was no drinking man but everybody drank a little then, even the women. Men joked about it and the women, poor souls, tried to. Well—just five years almost to a day they brought him home to me—dead. He had had a few drinks—the first since our marriage. He was driving an ugly horse—and it happened.