"I hope, just because of your wife and child, Rivers, that you'll straighten up; that something will get a grip on you that will pull you up--not down further. No man has a right to put the burden of his right living or his going to hell on a woman's conscience, but women like your wife often have to carry that load. You've got that in you which, put to good purpose, might----" "Oh! cut it out." Rivers could bear no more. "I'm going to get out of your way--what more in hell do you want?" "Nothing." Northrup rose, white-lipped and stern. "Nothing. We are both of us, Rivers, paying a big price for a woman's freedom. It's only just--we ought not to want anything more." With that Northrup left the shack and retraced his lonely way to the inn. CHAPTER XVII Northrup arose the next morning before daylight and tried to write a note to Mary-Clare. It was the most difficult thing he had ever undertaken. If he could speak, it would be different, but the written word is so rigid. This last meeting had been so distraught, they had beaten about so in the dark, that his uncertainty as to what really was arrived at confused him. Could he hope for her understanding if without another word he left her to draw her own conclusions from his future life? She would be alone. She could confide in no one. She might, in the years ahead, ascribe his actions to the lowest motives, and he had, God knew, meant her no harm. Then, as it was always to be in the time on ahead, Mary-Clare herself seemed to speak to him. "It is what one does to love that matters." That was it--"What one does." With this fixed in his mind Northrup wrote: I want you to know that I love you. I believe you love me. We couldn't help this--but you have taught me how not to kill it. There are big, compelling things in your life and mine that cannot be ignored--you showed me that, too. I do not know how I am to go on with my old life--but I am going to try to live it--as you will live yours. There was a mad moment on the hill that last day we met--you saved it. There is a greater thing than love--it is truth, and that is why I must bid you good-bye--in this way. Crude and jagged as the thought was, Northrup, in rereading his words, did not now shrink from Mary-Clare's interpretation. She _would_ understand. After an early breakfast, at which Kathryn did not appear--Aunt Polly had carried Kathryn's to her room--Northrup went out to see that everything was ready for the journey home. To his grim delight--it seemed almost a postponed sentence--he discovered the chauffeur under the car and in a state of _calm_ excitement. In broken but carefully selected English the man informed Northrup that he could repair what needed repair but must have two hours or more in which to do it.