This page has been validated.
THE CRISIS
talking in this way?" exclaimed Chatteris abruptly. "I am simply trying to elevate the whole business by dragging in these wider questions. It's justification, when I didn't mean to justify. I have to choose between life with Adeline and this woman out of the sea."
"Who is Death."
"How do I know she is Death?"
"But you said you had made your choice!"
"I have."
He seemed to recollect.
"I have," he corroborated. "I told you. I am going back to see Miss Glendower to-morrow.
"Yes." He recalled further portions of what I believe was some prepared and ready-phrased decision—some decision from which the conversation had drifted. "The need of my life is discipline, the habit of persistence, of ignoring side
277
