es, this man whom he had scorned, there was something
in him like the ruin of a man after all. Geoffrey, too, was alone, and
his heart warmed to him. It was he who had married Eleanor Leigh, not
Geoffrey. "Carey," said he, "you can do nothing here. I am going to the
West. Come with me."

Carey looked at Ripon, puzzled; then, with a broken sob, he grasped his
hand and staggered to his seat. Ripon noticed for the first time that
the man was crazy with drink.

"Thank you," said he. "I must stay. I have something to do here first.
You know that she betrayed you? that it was her treason condemned you
and Dacre?"

Geoffrey nodded.

"And you, Ripon"--Carey pulled the other close to his lips and spoke
almost in a whisper--"you are the only man that woman ever loved. I know
it."

Geoffrey could make no answer. Again he rose to go.

"Where are you going?"

Geoffrey smiled and waved his hand vaguely. "To the West."

"Why?--I thought--you came over in Windsor's yacht--" The other stopped,
embarrassed. Geoffrey was touched by his interest.

"Carey, will you give me a glass of your brandy?"

Geoffrey poured it out. "Miss Windsor is married."

"Who told you so?"

"Your wife."

Carey brought his fist down shivering on the table. "And you believe
her?"

"Miss Windsor told me almost as much herself."

"Almost!" Carey burst into a wild laugh. "Here's to her!" he cried,
holding up his glass. "Ripon, you are the last gentleman who will ever
drink with me. I suspect you are the only one who would now. And here's
my last toast: Long life to your wife--and death to mine. Damn her!
Can't you see she lied?"

Carey rose from the table and staggered out of the room. It was already
the afternoon of a garish, shadeless day, and people stopped to look at
Carey's terrible pace as he strode along the sidewalk. As Ripon had
seen, he was insane with drink, or would have been but for one dominant
thought in his mind.

As Carey walked along the busy street, hardly a shop window, not a
bookstore, not an ignoble news-stand, but had displayed his wife's
picture. It was _Mrs. Carey_, _Mrs. Oswald Carey_, _Mrs. Carey and the
ex-King_, everywhere. One infamous pictorial publication had a
bare-necked portrait of the "notorious Eleanor Carey" side by side with
that of "Jim Dingan, the Lynn pugilist." As he entered Washington
Street, the newsboys were crying, "Horrible crime in New York! Scandal
in high life! Mrs. Carey leaves the court!" an