And finally, he read what, after Adam’s telling of the truth, he had scribbled at the end.

“Life is a battle.  I do not fight.  And life is not an individual adventure.”

It wasn’t.  It was a chain that clanked.

“I do not fight,” he read again and crossed it out.

“Adam, old man,” he said wryly, “I think to-night I’ve done some fighting.  And the fight has just begun.”

He tore the page out, struck a match and burned it.  Again he dropped back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Into the blur came Garry.

“Kenny!” he called.  “Kenny!”

Kenny opened his eyes with a start.  Garry stood by the cabin door, his hand upon the knob.

“Don asked me to come.  Kenny, I was on the porch.  Great God! the kid must have gone crazy.”

“You heard?”

“Yes.”

“He wanted to—­atone.”

“And now that he’s cooled down enough to remember your kindness, Kenny, he’s breaking his heart over you.  A queer kid!  I almost thrashed him.  He’s tramping off his brain-storm.”

“And Joan?”

“With Brian.”  Garry looked away.  “They have forgotten the world,” he added bitterly.

“Kenny, how did you manage?  That look in her face—­”

“I lied.”

“Gallant liar!” said Garry huskily.  “I knew you would.  It was the only kind way.”

“Almost,” said Kenny, “I did not remember to lie in time.  Truth is a thing I cannot understand.”

The sympathy in Garry’s eyes unnerved him.

“Garry,” he flamed, “why did I practice the telling of truth to end now with a lie?  Why did Joan plead for a year to learn to be my wife and learn in it—­not to be?”

“God knows!” said Garry gently.  “Why did agony come to Brian at the hands of a boy he’d befriended?  And then—­to you?”

“It is the Samhain of my life,” said Kenny rising.  “And I am no longer John Whitaker’s King of Youth.  I think my youth died back there when Don thrust it aside, not meaning, I take it, to be cruel.  But I grew up all at once.”  He frowned.  “Drowning men, they say, have a kaleidoscopic vision of the past.  I think sitting here that came to me.  Perhaps, Garry, if Eileen had lived I would have been different—­steadier.  I think I loved her.  I think it would have lasted.  A child is a beautiful link.  Perhaps that fever of vanity that grew to a burning in my veins would never have started.  Started, it was like a conflagration.  It drove Brian to sunsets.  God knows what it didn’t do.  I thought only of myself—­always.  That desire for adulation in a woman’s eyes, that curious persistent fever was, I’m sure, a sort of sex vanity.  It has nearly ruined many another man’s life.  It nearly ruined mine.  Always when I was drifting into new madness, I couldn’t work.  I dreamed.  The Isle of Delight, always receding!  I sang and whistled.  The King of Youth!  Only when I was drifting out again, could I bend myself to concentration and sanity.  And then another look in a girl’s soft eyes—­and more vanity and self and delirium.  But I’m tired.  I want to look ahead to—­to quiet and steadiness and work.”