“Just that. I must get out of her life somehow. Things have changed. It's too horrible to think of.” Herold shook himself free and halted. “My God!” he cried, “you?” John threw up his arms in a gesture of despair. “Can I help it? It is n't given to man to help these things.” “And Stella?” “I must get out of her life,” said John. “It will be difficult.” “What can you suggest?” “Nothing,” said Herold--“nothing now.” They moved on, and walked in dead silence to the parting of their ways. CHAPTER XVI THE making and the executing of a good resolution are two entirely different actions. The former is a process as instantaneous as you please--one born of passion, heaven-sent inspiration, alcohol, or New Year hysteria; the latter one of practical handling conditioned by the entanglement of a thousand circumstances. If a man carried out with lightning rapidity every good resolution he formed, he would inevitably make marmalade of his affairs, and clog therein the feet and bodies of many innocent people as though they were wasps. With evil resolutions it is another matter. You want to play the devil, and the sooner and more completely you do it, the nearer do you approximate to your ideal. But it is very dangerous to do good, and involves a vast amount of weary thought and trouble. It was all very well for John Risca to resolve to go out of the life of Stellamaris, but how could he do so without committing the manifest absurdity of taking a ticket for equatorial Africa? He was beset by forbidding circumstances. There was his work; there was Unity; there was his aunt; there was Stellamaris herself; and, chief of all, there was the baleful figure of the woman who went about with murderous hatpins. Thus in an ironical way did history repeat herself. Six years before he was all for flying to the antipodes on account of his wife, and was restrained by consideration of Stellamaris; and now, when it would be the heroical proceeding to fly to the ends of the earth from Stellamaris, he was restrained by considerations in which his wife was a most important factor.