They might go and find the minister away, and then--voila, what a chance for cancan! So she went alone.
From his window he watched her depart; and as she drove away in the fresh morning he fell to thinking what it might seem like if he had to look forward to ten, twenty, or forty years with just such a woman as his wife.

Now she was at her best (he did not deceive himself), but in ten years or less the effects of her early life would show in many ways.

She had once loved Vanne Castine! and now vanity and cowardice, or unscrupulousness, made her lie about it.

He would have her at her best--a young, vigorous radiant nature--for his short life, and then, good-bye, my lover, good-bye! Selfish?
Of course.

But she would rather--she had said it--have him for the time he had to live than not at all.