And nothing man might wish or say or do could change it.

Always, always he must remain bound by that, no matter what others did or thought; always, always he was under obligations to the end.
And now, alone, abandoned, helplessly sick, utterly dependent upon the decency, the charity, the mercy of her legal paramour, the young girl who had once been his wife had not turned to him in vain.
Before the light of her shaken mind had gone out she had written him, incoherently, practically _in extremis_; and if he had hitherto doubted where his duty lay, from that moment he had no longer any doubt.

And very quietly, hopelessly, and irrevocably he had crushed out of his soul the hope and promise of the new life dawning for him above the dead ashes of the past.
* * * * * It was not easy to do; he had not ended it yet.

He did not know how.
There were ties to be severed, friendships to be gently broken, old scenes to be forgotten, memories to kill.

There was also love--to be disposed of.