it was that idea of waste that dominated my mind in a strange interview i had with justin. for it became necessary for me to see justin in order that we should stamp out the whispers against her that followed her death. he had made it seem an accidental death due to an overdose of the narcotic she employed, but he had not been able to obliterate altogether the beginnings of his divorce proceedings. there had been talk on the part of clerks and possible witnesses. but of all that i need not tell you here; what matters is that justin and i could meet without hatred or violence. i met a justin grey-haired and it seemed to me physically shrunken, more than ever slow-speaking, with his habit of attentive silences more marked and that dark scar spread beyond his brows.

we had come to our parting, we had done our business with an affectation of emotional aloofness, and then suddenly he gripped me by the arm. "stratton," he said, "we two—— we killed her. we tore her to pieces between us...."

i made no answer to this outbreak.

"we tore her to pieces," he repeated. "it's so damned silly. one gets angry—like an animal."

i became grotesquely anxious to assure him that, indeed, she and i had been, as they say, innocent throughout our last day together. "you were wrong in all that," i said. "she kept her faith with you. we never planned to meet and when we met——. if we had been brother and sister——. indeed there was nothing."

"i suppose," he said, "i ought to be glad of that. but now it doesn't seem to matter very much. we killed her.... what does that matter to me now?"