CHAPTER 43It is easy and dramatic to bring down the curtain at the end of a play, but in human affairs there is no final curtain. If one player leaves the stage, the others still have lives to live and problems to be solved. Marian and Richard found theirs an easy one. In a few days they had come to a mutual trust and understanding which in ordinary circumstances it might have taken weeks and months to reach. Each had seen the other under the pressure of fear and strain, and had found qualities of unselfishness, fortitude, and kindness. The strong attraction which had been between them from the first had brought them so close that neither could now make a plan which did not include the other. Almost without a spoken word, certainly without set question and answer, they found themselves on
