atement that it was by mere chance she encountered Jim seemed to
have made Gilbert smile, and Jim's taking of her out to the ranch, the
assertion that it was the only thing to do, that she was sick and
delirious, had inspired Gilbert to say to him, quite neatly, "You
weren't delirious, I take it--not more than usual."

Then he demanded that Laura go with him, at once, back to her husband,
or out to her mother's. She considered the matter and chose to go back
to Bowman, saying bitterly that her mother made the match in the first
place, and stood always against her daughter and with her son-in-law
whatever he did. Plainly it took all of Laura's persuasions to prevent
actual blows between Gilbert and Edwards. Also, she would only promise
to go back and live under Bowman's roof, but not as his wife--and the
whole situation was much aggravated.

I followed Mr. Thomas Gilbert's observation of this affair: his amused
understanding of how much Jim Edwards and Laura hated him; his private
contempt for Bowman, to whom he continued to give countenance and moral
support; his setting down of the quarrels, intimate, disastrous, between
Bowman and his wife, as the doctor retailed them to him, the woman
dragging herself on her knees to beg for her freedom, and his callous
refusals; backed by threat of the wide publicity of a scandalous
divorce suit, with Thomas Gilbert as main witness. I turned to Worth and
asked,

"When will Edwards be here?"

"Any minute now." Worth looked at me queerly, but I went on,

"You said he phoned from the ranch. Did he answer you in person--from
out there?"

"That's what I told you, Jerry."

My searching gaze made nothing of the boy's impassive face; I plunged
again into the diaries, running down a page, getting the heading of a
sentence, not delaying to go further unless I struck something which
seemed to me important, and each minute thinking of the strangeness of a
man like this killing himself. It was in the 1916 volume, that I made a
discovery which surprised an exclamation from me.

"What would you call this, Worth? Your father's way of making
corrections?"

"Corrections?" Worth spoke without looking around. "My father never made
corrections--in anything." It was said without animus--a simple
statement of fact.

"But look here." I held toward him the book. There were three leaves
gone; that meant six pages, and the entries covered May 31 and June 1. I
had verified that before I spoke to h