PAST ALL DISHONOR

The Cain convention, a man and a woman- murderously and amorously amok-, in the story set (nominally only) in the Civil War, of Roger Duval, better born, and Morina, adventurers and whore. Roger, a spy, meets Morina on a boat where in pinching a pocketbook she is alerted by the police, helps her get away, lives with her for a few days when she leaves him. He finds her again in a fancy house in Virginia City, where she sets her price- for him- at a thousand, and where, to make that thousand, he almost loses an arm. Morina saves him, he in turn kills the man Morina is to marry, and finally both go off together and plan the holdup of a train and a payroll in which both lose their lives. Again a savage, sensual pursuit of passion, this time toned down by familiarity- or maybe it's just fatigue. Anyway, it does not rank with his best.