The first two days at the cabin were swell. The warm July afternoons gave way to chilly Adirondack nights, and we huddled together in the little bed against the cabin wall, clasping each other for warmth. I was going to miss Peggy, I realized. Never in her wildest days was Helen ever like this.

We swam, and I fished while Peggy watched, and we hiked through the woods. There was no sign of anyone around. The nearest town was eight miles away, and there was a good healthy timber-stand between them and us.

The days passed. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Just the two of us. Peggy was making it hard for me to do what I came here to do.

She’d sit there on the little beach in her skimpy bikini and smile up at me and say, “Mike, it’s going to be like this always, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I’d say, but my voice would be harsh. I had to pity her. She had wandered into one of the spiderwebs human beings build around themselves, and for her the only way out was death.

Her body was still lean, her belly flat; I had trouble believing there was new life growing in her. But I knew I didn’t dare wait until it became obvious; the doctor’s report had to be accurate. If she’d been lying, if this was all some bluff designed to fake me into divorcing Helen and marrying her, then it was even better; I wouldn’t even have to feel sorry for the girl then. But the days slipped by, and Peggy grew tanner and more lovely, and there was nothing to do but swim and make love and swim some more. At least, I thought, she’d have known a couple of weeks of happiness before she died. The short, happy life of Peggy Armour, I thought.

The ninth day went by, then the tenth. And I made up my mind I’d better get about my business.

I had it all planned. The old American Tragedy bit. The lake adjoining our cabin was long and narrow, maybe a couple of miles long and plenty deep; I’m a good swimmer but I hadn’t been able to find bottom at the middle, so it was at least twenty-five or thirty feet deep and maybe a lot more. Maybe as much as a hundred. I didn’t think they’d find her too fast, not up here in the woods.

So I suggested we go rowing.

“I’d love to!” she said. She was writing letters. Of course, she had no way of mailing them, but she was writing letters anyway, to various girlfriends of hers. Maybe she figured on mailing them when she got back. Maybe she was writing them just for the hell of it. In many ways she was just an overgrown high-school kid, anyway. She had none of Helen’s cool, too-cool sophistication.