This man, who a while ago could not bear the touch of his wife’s hand, experienced a momentary revulsion toward his own future, to all it offered. He wanted to go back, take Helen in his arms, kiss her, feel the cleanness and sweetness of her goodness and nearness to him. But this was only momentary. He remembered the dullness of the years. He must buck up, he told himself hastily; just let him get through, escape this last tug of the old life and he would be a free man. Beneath this shrewd calculation of himself, there was a faint premonition that he had better not go back in there to perform these last sacred rites of parting with his wife. He was afraid of her, as criminals fear law. He went out, closing the front door softly behind him. He walked hurriedly toward the station, disturbed and shamed by the thoughts his very steps seemed to toss up in his mind. For months, while his affair in New York was progressing lightly but surely toward this crisis, he had dreaded this scene with Helen. He had felt for her, the distress and anguish she must suffer at the idea of losing him. He had always been as sure as that of her deep devotion. Now it appeared that he had lost Helen. He realized suddenly that he had counted on her. Whatever he became, back here in that quiet house Helen would always be his wife. She was not the woman to think of a divorce. Well, he had been a fool not to have understood all along that Helen would be true to herself as usual, to her own convictions, whatever they were. And he was no longer one of these convictions. Life was a mess, anyhow. If a man failed, he had poverty pawing at his door. If he succeeded, made a fortune, his nature, his tastes and desires all changed. If only Helen had gone out and made a name or a fortune, achieved something in the world, he supposed she would be different too. Maybe she would have understood-- The whistle of a locomotive in the distance ended these speculations. He stepped from the pavement and swung with long strides down the railroad track to where the sleeping cars would stop. A moment later there was a rattle of the rails, a roar and a grinding of brakes. The self-bereaved husband climbed aboard, walked magnificently up the aisle of the car to his section, sat down, rumbled a command to the porter and heaved a sigh. He was immensely relieved. The worst of it was over. He had suffered some, but he was feeling very fit now, animated. He was done with the past. He was headed for New York, the city that whetted a man’s senses and ambitions. He had worked hard. The world owed him something for that. No place like New York for collecting what the world owed a fellow, and so on and so forth.