It was best.

There was Agnes, with her debt of gratitude to be paid and with her affection for him, which in its blindness could not discern the fact that it was repaid only as a sense of duty.

There was the fight to be made,--and the past.

Houston shuddered with the thought of it.

Things were only as they should be; grimly he told himself that he had erred in even thinking of happiness such as comes to other men.