Chapter I: Part ONE: The Roots (1)

I suppose it was that five-point-nine that was to blame--or the gunner who fired it; or maybe it was my own fault for lagging behind the rest of my battalion as we advanced deployed through that ploughed-up cemetery; but, somehow, I find myself laying it all before Anita's door. She would never have permitted me to marry her, feeling the way she did. As my mind wanders back over those days long ago I remember that I was certain I would die if she refused me; now I may die because she didn't.

They are going to bury her tomorrow, or so I've been told, and they are holding me responsible for her death. The District Attorney, who visited me in my cell this morning, says that I am sure to get the Chair. But I am not afraid. On the other hand, my own lawyer is confident they will have to let me go free. In the event that he is wrong and they do sentence me to die, it will not matter much. After what I have been through, death no longer presents a terrifying picture. And this is very strange for I have always been afraid to die.

If only I had been born fearless, like Carter or Mullins or Sergeant Wilkinson, maybe all this would not have happened. There is an old saying that Fortune favors the bold. But because the thought of dying and the rattle of machine-guns made me tremble, I crept into a shell-hole and remained there, digging my fingers into the soft earth while everyone else continued to advance.

Practically the entire battalion was wiped out during the next half hour. Had I not broken ranks and hidden myself, protected by the cover of darkness, I would have been killed then and there with my comrades and spared the subsequent nightmare that became my life. I would have died a hero; not a murderer. But, naturally, I knew nothing of what the future had in store for me.

It was while I huddled in that shell-hole that a five-point-nine shrieked close to my head. That is all I can remember until I suddenly came to my senses more than three months later in a small, French hospital forty kilometres from Paris. Little did I dream that that shell would form one of the most important links in a chain of circumstantial evidence which would indict me, try me, and convict me of a crime later to be committed four thousand miles away! A theologian would claim, no doubt, that God punished me for being a coward, and perhaps that assumption is correct. I don't pretend to know. All that I _do_ know is that I've certainly been through hell since the war and that if I had known then what I know now and been given the choice either of advancing with the rest and stopping a bullet or lagging behind and living, I most certainly would have chosen the former.

It has always been my custom to hide my unnatural timidity; but here, in this confession, explanation of my peculiar behaviour, or what have you, I have resolved to be absolutely frank and truthful. Since my childhood, any action, sport or utterance of words which might in some way lead to physical violence I have painstakingly avoided. It might have been for this reason that I chose the career of doctor with the altruistic ambition to help alleviate some of the world's suffering. However, after two years of pre-medicine, my widowed mother passed away and I was forced to give up my studies and use the small insurance in the opening up of a drugstore.

It wasn't much of a store, compared with the glittering chrome and steel of modern places. The prescription room was only half the size of this cell from which I write and the little wooden counter, where my errand-boy dispensed bottled soda-pop and ice-cream, was scarcely longer than this cot. But it was mine. I was proud to be its sole proprietor. The first day I was in possession of the place I had a large green and white sign painted:

THE ITHACA DRUG COMPANY
Peter Thatcher
Apothecary

All this was late in 1915, when I was only twenty-four years old, and I suppose that my extreme youth did little toward establishing my reliability as a competent pharmacist. The people of the town--and when I say this I do not mean the Cornell students--a good many of them knowing me from the time I was a little boy, could scarcely have confidence enough to permit me to compound their ofttimes dangerous prescriptions. My small store would probably have failed in that first year had it not been for old Doc Turnbull who sent me all his work and was instrumental in spreading around town the fact that I, at least, never took a drink during business hours. In this manner he helped my trade, at the same time doing much to damage the reputation of his old-time enemy, Ray Cavender, who owned the apothecary shop on the opposite corner.

Those were comparatively happy days. I was working very hard building up a business and time did not hang heavily on my hands. Also I was single then; my heart was my own and I was not even contemplating marriage. As a matter of fact, women have always awed me somewhat and I have generally avoided them. As a boy I was inordinately shy and whenever a girl schoolmate was thrust upon me as a partner for a two-step, my chums would jeer: "Look at him blush!" Whereupon, sadly, the color was sure to flood my cheeks.

Perhaps it was this shyness that prevented me from having the multiple "puppy-loves" people are always talking about. At least I know, if there can be any satisfaction in that, that I have never been in love, even momentarily, with anyone other than the girl I eventually made my wife. You may be inclined to doubt that I loved even _her_. The press has been very unkind. The reporters I have allowed to interview me did not seem to understand that a man can kill someone he loves and still feel no pangs of remorse. No, I am not sorry I killed Anita. As a matter of fact, I'm not entirely sure I _did_ kill her. Theoretically she killed herself and I was merely the instrument that brought about her end.

But I am running ahead of my story. The statements I have just made sound contradictory and until you have all the facts I cannot hope that you will understand.

Just as I manifested no interest in women, women manifested no interest in me. I am not bad to look at, I think. I am rather short but with a good build. I am rarely ill and even now, after many years of deciphering scrawled prescriptions, my eye-sight is perfect. But there has never been anything about me that would attract a girl. I am not very romantic and for this reason my life, up until the time I met Anita, was curiously empty of heart throbs.

I lived all alone in my mother's house. Although I could have made excellent use of the money it would have brought, I could not part with it. Quite a number of times I was approached by real estate investors who offered "to take it off my hands." While their propositions were inviting, I could not imagine myself living any other place. The house was very old, built way back in the Civil War days by my father, and not too large to be comfortable. It was situated on a quiet road lined with great elm trees; and it had a garden which sloped down to the bank of Lake Cayuga. In the summer I used to spend much of my time there after I had closed the store, watching other young people drift by in canoes or bathe on the opposite side of the cove. Their light laughter as they splashed about came pleasantly to my ears and made me feel very contented. Occasionally I thought of the European War as the buzzing of mosquitoes around my head suggested the droning flight of planes. It always seemed strange to me that humans can be social at one moment and fired with the desire to destroy at the next. And as I pondered this paradox of nature I was thankful that I lived in America where there was so little discord.

Some evenings Doc Turnbull would stop by in passing on his evening round of patients and we would talk. I should say _he_ would talk for most of the time I merely listened. He was a fat old man with a great mop of white hair and very bushy brows. It was often impossible to see his eyes but they were generally twinkling with good humour. He was not a very cultured person for he was gruff, outspoken and perpetually profane. However, even with his solecisms and epithets there was an uncanny truth in whatever he said. Many of his homely observations which at the time I decried I have since recognized to be correct. If he were alive today, I would write to him and tell him that I have at last discovered his greatness.

"Pete," I can hear him saying, "people never thank you for the truth. They expect you to lie; and if you don't live up to their expectations.... Well, by the Jesus, they tie a tin can to your tail. It's like a woman who asks you how she looks. If you don't praise her ... off comes your head!"

I ventured no comment to this because I had a sneaking feeling what he was leading up to. Grateful as I was to Doc Turnbull, I did not want him telling me how to run my business. I wanted to run it myself.

"That's why you've just lost old lady Cahill as a customer, boy. What? You didn't know you'd lost her? Well, you have. You see, Pete, I've been treating that bitch for almost fifteen years. Treating her for what, I don't know. There ain't really nothing the matter with her except one helluva disposition. She just ain't happy 'less she's got something to complain about. To use one of them new-fangled names, she's a hypochondriac. Why, say, if I didn't hand her a fancy Latin label for all her ailings, she'd up and have that young squirt Carpenter over inside ten minutes. So, as far as I'm concerned, she's suffering from a chronic _omnia gallia in tres partem_ complicated by a slight _e pluribus unum_." Doc paused and spit reflectively before adding, "You shouldn't have tipped her off that what I prescribed for her was only a mixture of salt, bicarb and water. She raised hell, I'm telling you. I had to change it to sugar, bicarb and water. And she was so peeved at you for telling her she looked the picture of health that I just know she'll take her trade somewhere else."

I am reluctant to admit that there were other incidents like the one described. At least five or six times I was unwittingly instrumental in getting the Doc in hot water with his patients, not realizing that there was such a thing as being _over_-sympathetic. I was certain that it would make any person happier to know that there was nothing really serious about his or her condition. How little I knew of life! But Doc was always forgiving and while occasionally disgusted with me for being so inept a pupil, he never ceased his frequent visits to my home until after my marriage.

Anita never liked Doctor Turnbull and I am positive he sensed it. After he had gone home, she would very often become abusive. Also, whenever I failed to hang up my clothes or neglected to wipe my feet before entering the house she would accuse me of rapidly becoming "a pig like that Turnbull quack." In the beginning, I tried to put in a quiet word of defense for the old fellow who was my friend, reminding her that were it not for him the drugstore would fail. Soon, though I took to holding my tongue. It only enraged Anita and, being a person set in her opinions, it did little good trying to make her like him as I did. Besides, since I was in love with her, it always distressed me to see her upset. Hence, Doc's visits became fewer, longer intervals elapsed between them, and soon he did not come at all. The only chats I ever had with him thereafter were at the store when I was too busy and he too much in a hurry to linger long.

But to get back to Anita. I first set eyes upon her on April 17, 1917, when business was booming and the nation was infected with war hysteria. You may think it strange that I am able to remember the exact date some twenty years later; but I have in my hand the prescription she brought in to be filled. It was made out to Miss Anita Hunt by Leo Carpenter, M.D., and called for a capsule (terpin, hydrate and codeine) generally useful in relieving a minor chest congestion. I remember that when she passed it over the counter she remarked that she was paying the price for an early swim in the lake.

I will spare you her description. Besides, you have probably seen her pictures in the newspapers and marvelled at her beauty. One of those pictures was taken shortly after we were married so you can see why my heart stopped beating as I looked into her eyes. I think my hand must have shook as I went about the business of filling the prescription. I was infinitely grateful that there was no one in the store who would cry, "Look at him blush!" for I feel sure that I would have dropped through the floor.

I remember that my fingers felt all thumbs as I worked, for her clear voice distracted me. She casually remarked that she had just come to town a few days before and asked me if I knew of any nice furnished rooms. She went on to explain that at present she was stopping at the Colonial House which was far too expensive for her new job at the Knit Shoppe. After I had blurted out the suggestion that Mrs. Michaelson's boarding house on North Tioga was perhaps the place she was seeking, she thanked me warmly, handed me twenty cents for the package and left the store. In my confusion I said nothing. The fact that I usually charged a quarter for the capsules was forgotten. I only knew that the girl was the most fascinating customer it had ever been my privilege to wait on.

I finished the remainder of the day in somewhat of a trance. I vaguely recall having filled a prescription for fat Mrs. Burtleson and removed a particle of dust from Joe Crespi's eye but the rest remains a blank. My record book, which they have permitted me to keep in my cell and which I hope will jog my memory of those days I am trying to describe, states that I sold eight bottles of cough syrup on that particular day, two hot-water bottles, six toothbrushes, fourteen rolls of bandages, and that I filled twelve prescriptions. If I did, I can't remember. But I know that when I sat near the lake that night and smoked with old Doc Turnbull, I found myself strangely inattentive and, for the first time, glad when he went home.

I was thinking how wonderful it might be for any man to call such a woman "wife." The usual vision of pipe, slippers and soft music on the gramophone, a large dog, the evening paper and Anita darning socks lingered to drug my mind; pleasant pictures even though slightly absurd. I slumped down in my chair and smoked cigarette after cigarette until it was very late. One by one the lights across Cayuga winked out. The faint breeze that had been present all evening gradually whipped itself into a wind. In the elms the night crickets fell silent and only the quiet slap of the ripples on the shore came to my ears.

It was not until after I had sneezed several times that I realized I was catching cold. But more important still, it dawned on me that I was falling in love. I rose from the chair, cramped and stiff, went into the house and took two aspirin tablets before crawling sleepily into bed.

* * * * *

During the weeks that followed Anita became the most popular girl in town. She often came into my store just before closing time in the hot evenings for some ice-cream or a bottle of cool soda. Usually she was with young Doctor Carpenter whom I had known at medical school.

Carpenter was a pleasant enough chap and I rather liked him--despite Doc Turnbull's disgruntled remarks. He was the son of the town's wealthiest realtor whose poor health forced him to spend much of his time away from home at various resorts and spas. Therefore, Leo generally lived alone, surrounded by servants in the big brick house on the Heights. The boy was tall and handsome with a neat blond moustache. It was his habit to finger it whenever he was perplexed. I recall hearing the story that one day he was called into consultation at the request of one of Doc Turnbull's patients. Leo took so long to arrive at the simple diagnosis that the old medico became annoyed. "For the love of God!" shouted Turnbull suddenly. "Will you quit yanking that damned thing and tell the lady her bellyache's an acute appendicitis!" In revenge, Leo spread it about town that old Doc's bedside manners were as comforting as those of a callous veterinary. A feud ensued, lasting for several months. Then it died as suddenly as it had started and the two merely regarded each other with cold disdain.

Of course it was only natural that Leo's good looks and custom tailoring should make him popular with the town girls and even with the young men. He was the proud owner of a Winton Six touring car, a beautiful $2800 machine in which he made his professional rounds. In the evenings during spring and summer it was his custom to pack his car with young people and roar away in the direction of the Tompkins Country Club. I say, _in the direction of_ because I was never invited along on any of those rides. I am afraid that I was never popular with any but the older people who were my customers and with whom I would sympathetically discuss their various ailments. It may be that I was too serious about myself and my little store; but I did want to succeed and often I would dream of the time when the store would be larger.

You may be sure that I went through considerable agony watching the girl with whom I was in love constantly being escorted by the handsome physician. The more times I saw her in his company the more I loved her and the less attention I paid to business. My regular patrons soon noticed my distraction. Doc Turnbull, with his customary rare insight into human nature, almost hit upon my trouble. "You should soon be thinking of getting married, son," he grunted as he chewed away at his cigar. "We all need the womenfolk, you know. It ain't natural for you to sweat all day in your dope-shop and then go home and cook your own grub. Look around and pick yourself a slave!"

I tried to cover up my embarrassment by offering the jocular comment: "And be hen-pecked like you? Not on your life!"

Turnbull winced. "Oh, a man can be happy," he insisted, "even though he _has_ got a wife. That is, provided he knows the formula for marital bliss." He paused, waiting for me to express the desire to hear this formula but I am afraid my mind was wandering again. "Up to forty, double bed; forty to fifty, single beds; fifty to sixty, separate rooms; above sixty, separate homes."

I laughed at this and asked him how old _he_ was. "Me? Oh, that's for those who can afford it. You can't get rich shoving pills down people's throats ... unless you've got a tricky moustache."

Hurriedly, I changed the subject. I did not want him to start discussing Carpenter. It might lead to mention of Anita. It had somehow leaked out that they were already engaged and rumor had it that they contemplated an undelayed marriage.

In a small town a drugstore is invariably the center of gossip--barber-shops running a close second--and I am sure that I was the most informed person in town. I was always the first to know things and very often people would ask me questions about what so-and-so intended to do. Not wishing to be involved in the spreading of malicious gossip, it was my policy to look innocent and even surprised that they expected me to know.

To the remarks I overheard concerning Anita and Dr. Carpenter I took little heed. It would never do for anyone to suspect my own interest in the girl. Folks might laugh or guy me about her. Besides it might get back to Anita. So I contained myself as best I could and tried to dismiss the remarks casually. In this, I pride myself on being successful. Up until the day I married Anita before the Justice of the Peace no one uncovered my true feelings.

One Saturday afternoon Leo and Anita were in the store and fell to quarreling. I can't remember how the argument started exactly but it became more vigorous as the minutes passed until I felt embarrassed witnessing it. I retired to the drug room, hoping that a customer would come in so that they either would have to cease their quarrel or continue it some place else. From what I overheard I gathered that Anita wanted to attend some party or other and Leo did not. This seemed to me to be a trivial cause for a scrap but, at length, Anita stamped out of the store, slamming the screen door viciously behind her. Leo remained where he was.

As I came from the back, carrying some packages of supplies to explain my disappearance from the scene of the dispute, Leo made the remark: "Well, if that's the way she feels, to hell with her!" Then he turned to me. "Aren't women the limit, Pete? Treat them nice, and the first thing you know they think they own you!"

From that time on, I am afraid I entertained the notion that Leo was not in love with her; and that if she was capable of ranting at him the way she had, the affair would not last long. I did not know then that passion plays strange tricks on people. I did not know that the ones who hate hard, love hard.

The following day I learned that Anita had gone to the party unescorted and, although the weather was too cold to be suitable, had taken a swim. To my disappointment, I also learned that they had made up later on and had driven off in his car for the remainder of the evening.

Indeed, the graph of my hope was erratic; first up and then down as weeks rolled by. Whenever she would come into the store to purchase some item she would smile pleasantly and direct at me only those impersonalities which had to do with the temperature or the weather. Only once did she say, "And how are _you_ today?" Fearful that in a moment of weakness I might let slip something which would give me away, I retreated behind my best storekeeper's manner.

The opinion might be formed by this time that I am something of a stoic and, except for one instance which I set down at this point, I think I did rather well in concealing my love. But I could scarcely keep myself from vaulting the counter and striking Doctor Carpenter the day he walked into my store and requested that I sell him a certain article which, I had no doubt, he intended to employ in wooing the woman for whom I yearned. Naturally, I did no such thing. Instead, I controlled my temper and curtly informed him that I was completely sold out of what he wanted. I think he looked at me in a puzzled way. My tone, I suppose, was quite the reverse of the usual deferential manner I adopted when speaking to customers.

In that the doctor weighed fully twenty-five pounds more than I did, and was well respected as an amateur boxer, you may draw the conclusion if you like that I controlled myself because I was afraid of reprisals. Carpenter was not the type of man to permit himself to be struck without retaliating. But the truth of the matter is that at the moment I was too enraged to think of what bodily harm any such action on my part would involve. I held myself in check only because I knew it would give me away.

Through the plate-glass window, I watched the doctor cross the street and enter Ray Cavender's place, proceed to the back of the store and emerge a few minutes later putting something into his vest pocket. I felt sick to my stomach and a little dizzy. I locked up the drug room and, when my errand-boy returned from a delivery, I ordered him to take charge of the place for the rest of the day.

* * * * *

The following events which immediately preceded my marriage seem now to have happened with incredible swiftness but I imagine the days must have appeared intolerably long at the time. My prescription record informs me that on June 28, 1917, I began to make myself sleeping powders out of mild opiates. Since I am usually a sound sleeper, this suggests that I tossed and turned on my mattress as my mind tortured me by conjuring up visions of Anita in the arms of my rival.

It was Mrs. Michaelson, Anita's landlady, who first brought me the news that Anita and Carpenter had set the Fourth of July as their wedding day. My heart sank when I heard this. In despair I tried to persuade myself that it was merely a rumor without the slightest foundation of fact. To more or less substantiate my theory, Henry Liscombe, the County Clerk, who frequently patronized my store, had made no mention of issuing a license to the couple and Henry was the town's most garrulous individual. That night, however, I learned to my dismay that Anita had quit her job at the Knit Shoppe, telling her employer that she was going to be married.

As I was locking up on the evening of July 2nd I again encountered Mrs. Michaelson. Being something of a pet of hers from the days when I helped her carry bundles from the fruit stand (where I used to work during summers) to her buggy, she was accustomed to confide in me many interesting tidbits concerning her lodgers. So it was not without precedent that she related to me, almost verbatim, the terrible scrap that had taken place between Anita and the doctor in her back parlor.

"When he showed her the telegram, Peter, I thought the roof would come off! She was that mad! I was in the dining-room, mind you, setting the places for supper. I couldn't help overhearing the whole thing!"

That the Michaelson dining-room was immediately adjacent to the back parlor, I was well aware; and she could very easily have retired to the kitchen had she so desired. But, of course, I did not suggest this to her. I was only too grateful for any news which had to do with Anita's plans.

"Never in all my born days did I see a body so unreasonable," went on the old lady. "Here's that poor boy Leo with a telegram saying that he'd better hike himself out to Phoenix right away if he wants to see his father alive; and here's that Hunt baggage insisting that they _both_ go ... after the wedding, of course! Well, Leo minced no words, I can tell you! He said: 'That would be nice, wouldn't it? Having a honeymoon while my dad's dying. I'm sorry, Anita. We'll have to postpone getting married until I come back.' At that she flies completely off the handle! But c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y! 'If you run off now without taking me, after I quit my job and told everyone I was getting married on the Fourth, you can stay away forever for all I care!' Well, Peter, to make a long story short, as I've got to get back to the house and see to it that that hired girl's cleaned up the kitchen before sneaking home, Leo turns on his heel and leaves her standing there. They were supposed to go out somewhere, too. I don't know if he'll go through with his trip or not but there's a train out to New York tonight at nine and if he isn't aboard it, I'll be mighty surprised!"

Mrs. Michaelson hurried off down State Street, little dreaming that she had caused a great jubilance to well up within me. My mental scoreboard chalked up another point for my team.

That same evening after I had cooked and eaten my solitary meal, I decided to take a little stroll. It had been very warm all day but, with the going down of the sun, a welcome cool descended, bringing me renewed energy. This was rather a phenomenon because I usually felt totally spent after ten hours on my feet, and walking, whether in the evening cool or not, was an activity it was my habit to avoid. Nevertheless, on that night I found myself irresistibly drawn to the railroad station.

Arriving there, I lingered in the shadows of the closed freight warehouse, my attention riveted on the lighted interior of the waiting-room. I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to nine. I was badly in need of a smoke but I did not want to risk revealing myself to anyone who might happen by. From where I stood I could not of course see the lights of Ithaca's famous crescent but the Trumansburg road rose in a steep, broken line of lights, reminding me, for no apparent reason, of Jacob's ladder. A west-bound freight, probably going to Buffalo and Chicago, thundered past. The headlight of the locomotive rested upon me for a brief moment and then flashed away.

Soon I was rewarded for my patience. Doctor Carpenter stepped out of the waiting-room and onto the platform, carrying two satchels. Far up the track the whistle of a train came faintly mournful to my ears. I looked around for some sign of Anita. I could see none. If she was there, she must be still inside the waiting-room. The two pieces of luggage, though, were a bad omen. Moreover, the doctor kept turning his head this way and that as if he expected someone.

Soon the train ground and hissed to a stop. A porter descended and lifted the two bags into the Pullman and as the conductor cried, "All 'board!" and waved a signal to the engineer, the doctor reluctantly climbed up as the train gathered speed.

Well! No words of mine can express how elated I was! I could have sung and, strangely enough, that is exactly what I did do. My voice, at best, has never been much more than a nasal groan which, as it increases in volume, gets worse. As the train disappeared in the distance, its red tail-lantern shrinking smaller and smaller until it could no longer be seen, I let loose my joy with such fervor that every person within a mile of the station must have been seriously alarmed. I remember the station-agent came out onto the platform and recognizing me asked: "What's the trouble, Pete? Ya sick?"

Of course I recalled that Carpenter and Anita had scrapped before and had made up within a few hours. But this, I hoped, would be a permanent rift which they would never allow their prides to bridge. While my own suit was in no way furthered, at least I knew my most formidable rival was temporarily out of the picture, leaving the field clear. It was now up to me.

But how? I had never had any great experience with women and, except for one or two occasions at medical school when, in the company of some classmates, I visited a house of ill repute, absolutely no intimate relations with them at all.

This problem occupied my mind that night as I returned to my house and took up my usual position near the lake. That I could never be happy without Anita had long ago impressed me; and I knew that unless I worked fast the doctor might return and make up with her. Yes, or she might become infatuated with someone else. There were so many nice young men in town, business people and wealthy students from up on the hill. I wondered at my conceit in hoping to succeed.

Fortunately, the problem solved itself without my having to devise any schemes by which she would fall in love with me and consent to a marriage. And the very night that marked Doctor Carpenter's departure from the scene marked the fulfillment of all my dreams.

* * * * *

I must have dropped off to sleep in my deck-chair for several hours on that night of July 2nd; for when I opened my eyes the absence of any lights across the lake made it obvious that midnight was a thing of the past. I felt refreshed after my nap and, as my mind awakened and became conscious of what had transpired earlier, I felt even buoyant. Despite the fact that I would have to be at the store earlier than usual the next morning to receive a shipment of fireworks, I decided not to turn in. I was not the least bit sleepy and anyway I wanted to think.

But on my back porch I had left a light burning and it annoyed me. Although my back was to it, the yellow glow coming over my shoulder seemed to intrude upon the welcome comfort of the darkness. The night was unusually dark for that season of the year. The sky was a vast expanse of mourning veils, uncontaminated by a moon or even by stars. And the air was almost cold.

Over Cayuga the wind seemed to moan the syllables of the lake's name and the rustling leaves of the trees sounded like the applause of some vast audience. Even with these noises, I got the strange feeling that it was quiet.

Always having been an ardent admirer of Nature and never having failed to be impressed by each and every one of her miracles, I am also sadly ignorant of her--like most people. I have never been able to remember the names of stars or trees or to distinguish types of birds; but I have always appreciated their beauty and often thought how strange the world would be if there were no such things. At the moment, however, even Nature could not force her way into my thoughts, occupied as they were with Anita and the baffling problem of winning her.

As I was about to extinguish the porch light, I was startled by the sound of splashing in the lake. I left the light burning and made my way to the shore. Something was emerging from the water. I could not make out who it was or even if it was a human. At first I fancied it might be some dog belonging to a neighbor.

"Who's there?" I called, feeling very silly.

I was rewarded by a groan of relief. "So you've awakened at last, have you? I've been paddling around for over an hour! Didn't you hear me call?"

The voice shook me and I fumbled in my pockets for a match. I might have spared myself the effort because I recognized her voice instantly. The match flared and before it flickered out, burning the tips of my fingers, I saw that she was in a bathing suit and shivering with the cold.

"Miss Hunt!" I gasped.

"That's right," she replied, her teeth chattering. "And whoever you are I'm sorry to have got you out of bed. I'm afraid I lost my bearings in the dark. Am I anywhere near town? Lucky I saw your light."

I struck another match so that she would recognize me. Needless to say, this unexpected visit seemed most portentous and left me temporarily tongue-tied. Of all the persons who might have been swimming in the lake, it had to be Anita! And of all the places she might have come ashore, it had to be at my own landing! I almost began to believe in God.

Now when I look back on it I can only regret that she came that night. If I had not left that light burning, in all probability she would have drowned or landed at some other point. In any case I am certain we would never have been married and the marriage, I reiterate, was the direct cause of my undoing.

"I'm Peter Thatcher," I managed to say.

"Yes, of course. I know. The druggist man."

I became suddenly aware that her mouth was blue with the cold and that her arms were goose-flesh. "Will ... will you come inside, Miss Hunt? You've got to warm yourself or you'll catch your death of cold. I ... I live alone here," I stammered apologetically as an after-thought.

As I uttered this, I was sure she would refuse. Ladies did not visit bachelor's homes unchaperoned in the dead of night.

"I was waiting for you to invite me in." And she accepted my invitation with a celerity that was not surprising when you saw how chilled she was.

"I was only thinking of the proprieties." I removed my Norfolk jacket and placed it about her wet shoulders--not without misgivings because the shirt I was wearing was rather shabby and none too clean. She murmured her thanks.

"Proprieties? I'm only interested in something warm."

"Watch out for those sharp stones," I warned her. "You'll cut your feet. I've been promising myself to clear this beach for years but somehow I never got around to it."

Guiding her with a hand on her bare elbow, we soon reached the house. I led her around into the living-room. "If you'll wait here, Miss Hunt, I'll run upstairs and find you some towels and maybe something to warm you up inside. I'm afraid that there are no logs for this fire-place but ... but it might be warmer in the kitchen if I light the stove." I remember that I felt ashamed to suggest that. In those very formal days one did not entertain their guests in the kitchen. Now, I understand that parties are given in attics, cellars, kitchens and even in hotel bedrooms. Such affairs twenty years ago were almost unheard of.

But Anita smiled reassuringly. "O, let's do go into the kitchen. I'll be lighting the stove while you fetch the towels."

I must confess that I am not much of a housekeeper, and during the years I lived alone, my place was generally very untidy. It was my custom to hire a scrub-woman on the first of each month to do a thorough job of hoeing out. Frequently, by the end of the month I would find myself without a clean dish to eat from and all of my towels black with shoe polish. Therefore I was infinitely grateful that this was the _second_ of the month. With everything in good order the little house was very presentable and I know that Anita was delighted with it.

I changed my shirt while I was upstairs before I did anything else and then I combed my hair. Besides three fresh towels, my best bathrobe and a pair of slippers, I also unearthed a bottle of rare brandy which I had set aside for some state occasion. I have never been an habitual drinker of hard liquor, being partial to beer and light wines; but I thought a glass or two of brandy might do her good after her cold swim. Then too I was hoping that the spirit might loosen her tongue and put us on more intimate terms ... make us friends.

This accident of Fate, I realized only too well, could never happen again. Therefore I was determined to make good use of the opportunity and not sit there like a ninny, uttering asinine generalizations and getting nowhere. I knew that I must make that night the key which some day would open the door of her heart to me.

I hurried back to the kitchen. Anita had the stove going full blast and already it was comfortably warm. She thanked me for the towels and without further ado, fell to rubbing herself vigorously. As she removed her rubber cap (which I at once recognized as part of my merchandise) her lovely yellow hair cascaded down her neck and shoulders. I had never seen her this way before and she looked so unspeakably beautiful with her hair unbound that I could not withhold an exclamation of delight. The urge was strong in me to cast aside all restraint, to take her in my arms; but she was my guest, at the moment helpless, so I refrained. Besides, the inhibitions of civilization are hard to break through. Seldom in my life had I given way to impulse. At the moment, however, I had to summon the full force of my restraint.

She flashed me a quick glance and for a moment I thought she would be angry. I cursed myself silently for a fool. But, instead she laughed and said: "Turn your back. I want to get out of this wet suit."

"Wait," I cried. "I'll go, if you like."

"O, don't bother. I trust you."

I turned around to face the wall and heard the crisp snap of elastic and the rustle of heavy taffeta. It gave me a pleasant sensation, her saying that she trusted me. It proved that she considered me something more than a chance acquaintance. There was also a breath-taking joy in the knowledge that we were in the same room together while she engaged in the intimate task of drying her naked body. My honorable intentions were somewhat frayed and stretched to the breaking-point. For this reason my voice sounded somewhat high and excited as I spoke to the wall, striving to appear casual and completely at ease. "I'm afraid I haven't much to offer you in the way of refreshment," I said, "except that brandy on the table or some tea. I never drink coffee."

"Did you say brandy? Lead me to it! You can turn around now."

As I obeyed, I started to say, "It's not very good brandy." I never finished the sentence. That first glimpse of her in my bathrobe--I'll never be able to forget. The robe was dark blue, matching her exquisite eyes; and her hair, tumbling down it.... But I have resolved not to go into raptures. I am sure that she noticed my appreciative stare for all the time we sipped away at our bandy I felt her eyes on me.

Thirty minutes passed. "Perhaps you're hungry?" I suggested.

"Famished! I could eat a horse."

"Well, I haven't any horse," I told her, "but if you like...."

Later, over bacon and scrambled eggs which she had insisted that she prepare herself, I summoned up enough courage to say: "But you haven't told me how you happened to be swimming so late at night. The water was certainly too cold for you to have enjoyed it."

A slight shadow flitted across her face. "I always go swimming when I'm angry. That's the only way I can get it out of my system. Cold water does wonders to my awful disposition!" She tried to laugh convincingly. Of course she did not suspect that I knew what was wrong. And I never told her that I had heard she had quarreled with Doctor Carpenter.

"I don't believe it!"

She looked up at me with a frown. "What? That I go swimming every time I get a grouch on?"

"No. That you've got an awful disposition."

She seemed pleased at that. "Oh, you don't know me yet!"

My heart thrilled at the "yet."

"My misfortune," I returned, feeling that I was talking like some hackneyed, if gallant, character in a cheap novel. "But how do you manage in winter?"

"Oh, I don't, really. You see I'm from the South where you can get angry as often as you like without catching pneumonia or bunking your head on a cake of ice."

That got us onto the subject of her past life. I found out that she came from Florida--Palatka--and had come North after her father died. "But you don't sound like a Southerner," I said. "I haven't noticed the slightest trace of an accent."

"Why should I have?" she retorted. "My dad was an English teacher in the Palatka school. What do you think? Only Yankees can speak the King's English?"

Lest the Civil War break forth anew, I changed the subject.

Another hour flew by. I scarcely realized the passage of time. By virtue of the four fingers of brandy I had consumed, I had grown more bold and I was commencing to call her by her first name. She, sadly, did not reciprocate. I remained, as far as she was concerned, nameless. But this was better than being addressed as "Mr. Thatcher."

We had discussed at some length the matter of her getting back to Mrs. Michaelson's and had arrived at the decision that she had much better wait until morning. I owned no car and she could not possibly walk that long distance through the streets clad only in bathing costume and wearing my slippers. Furthermore, it would not be right to awaken Mrs. Michaelson at this ungodly hour of the morning and ask her to wrap up one of Anita's dresses. Therefore, it had been agreed that we'd sit up the few remaining hours until daylight, at which time I would pay a call on Mrs. M.

To my way of thinking, Anita proved herself to be a very good sport in her predicament. Should anyone find out that she had been in my house the entire night, clad only in my bathrobe, a dreadful scandal was sure to follow, and her name, as far as Ithaca was concerned, would be ruined. Nevertheless, Anita maintained a sublime indifference to this possibility ... and even a reckless disregard for the accepted conventions. I must admit that this rather surprised me. I had not thought of Anita as daring.

I remarked that I was spiritually drunk that evening; I am loathe to admit that that was not all. I also become quite drunk with brandy and, I am afraid, so did Anita. As I have explained earlier, I am not accustomed to hard liquors and, in congenially keeping up with my pretty guest, I soon felt my tongue thicken and my head begin to spin. Although my faculties dulled with the alcohol, they did not take leave of me completely and I can remember the events which took place between the time Anita splashed into my life and the moment I first took her into my arms. However, if some of the moments seem vague in description, you may put it down as a combination of too much drink and too many years having elapsed since. But to me, this night stands out with absolute clarity. It was the happiest night in my entire life.

Now nobody respects a drunken woman. Hence, I had better remind you that Anita had every reason to try to drown her sorrows that night. Besides, she did not look or act drunk ... except that she cried continually. But her face did not grow red and ugly, and this is funny because I have since witnessed many of Anita's tantrums and she certainly erases her good looks with her tears.

"I hate him! Oh, I hate him!" she kept muttering between racking sobs.

I tried to comfort her as best I could but my soothing words seemed to pass unnoticed. As she babbled on, I found myself unconsciously hanging on her words. I wished to plumb her depths, learn her true feelings. While I recognized that she was not herself and might easily say something she would later regret, I was afforded the delicious sensation of hearing her denounce Leo Carpenter. Her very vehemence as she spoke his name began to infect me. I commenced to hate him, too.

Previously I had regarded his attentions to Anita only with jealousy and distaste; and except for that day in the store when he had tried to induce me to sell him a contraceptive, I harbored no great hatred for the man. After all, he had never been anything but friendly to me and, I daresay, had he suspected how I felt about Anita, he would not have come into _my_ store on such an errand.

Anita's wrath seemed genuine enough and I had no suspicions but that she really despised the man. Had I not been so happy that her love for him had died, I think I would have been a little alarmed at her capacity for enmity.

After her rage had exhausted her and had subsided into dry, body-racking sobs, she leaned forward on the kitchen table with her head buried in her arms. Before her, like some grisly tombstone, stood the empty brandy bottle. She had wrapped the bathrobe so tightly around her body that every line of her form was clearly defined. Through the thin material her breasts showed. They quivered an accompaniment to her choking convulsions.

I moved over to her and stood behind her, stroking her head soothingly as though she were a little child. I put an arm around her shaking shoulders and whispered that it was all right, Carpenter was gone and she would never have to worry about him again. My words, this time, took effect. But not in the way I intended. She began to feel sorry for herself. Wave after wave of self-pity swept over her until she was repeating that old, familiar masterpiece of spoiled children: "Nobody loves me!"

I wanted to do something--I don't quite know what--to reassure her. I wanted to pour out my love for her all at once and take the consequences. But ... no words came and I found that I couldn't galvanize myself into any action. Finally, I managed to sink to my knees beside her chair and raised her head by tugging at her shoulders. The bathrobe came loose, much to my dismay, and I caught a glimpse of one curved thigh. With her face between my palms, I looked into her wet eyes and said: "You're wrong, Anita. Somebody does love you."

I don't think that she heard me. If she did, she gave no sign. She continued to sob with her head against my chest and I pressed my lips to her forehead, her cheek and then at last I kissed her mouth.

It may appear disgusting that I should make love to a drunken woman, too befuddled with alcohol to fully realize what was being done to her. But remember that I was drunk myself. Even with this excuse, I am quite ashamed to confess that my marriage was born in such a fashion. You can readily understand why I have kept it a secret until now.

I vaguely recall lifting her in my arms and carrying her up the narrow winding stairs to my bedroom. And she must have been nude, for the next morning I came across my bathrobe lying on the kitchen floor.

Not wishing to delve into intimate details which normally should be discussed only between the parties concerned, it would definitely be misleading if I neglected to mention that when we eventually sobered up, Anita did not appear so very horrified upon finding herself in bed with me. On the contrary, she seemed to accept it as a matter of course and, had I had any regrets for my actions before she became sober, they swiftly took wing at her warm responses to my wooing.

I became thoroughly convinced that she had fallen in love with me. Moreover, if her mind was still filled with resentment because of Doctor Carpenter's desertion, at least she did not mention his name again.

When I returned to the house before ten that day with a bundle of her clothes, Anita was still in bed and sleeping soundly. The covers were tucked tightly under her chin but one arm, round and very white, dangled over the side. I stood and looked at her for a long time, scarcely breathing. I could not believe that such a thing had come to pass, that I, Peter Thatcher, had possessed the one woman in all the world.