month ought to be enough. I shall die
intestate, and she'll get everything then, of course. She has your
address and will communicate with you as soon as she gets settled
down in Town.

"Faithfully--

"HUGH MORTEN WHITAKER."

"If it hadn't been so much in character," commented Drummond, "I'd've
thought the thing a forgery--or a poor joke. Knowing you as well as I
did, however ... I just sat back to wait for word from Mrs. Whitaker."

"And you never heard, except that once!" said Whitaker thoughtfully.

"Here's the sole and only evidence I ever got to prove that you had told
the truth."

Drummond handed Whitaker a single, folded sheet of note-paper stamped
with the name of the Waldorf-Astoria.

"CARTER S. DRUMMOND, Esq., 27 Pine Street, City.

"DEAR SIR: I inclose herewith a bank-note for $500, which you will
be kind enough to credit to the estate of your late partner and my
late husband, Mr. Hugh Morten Whitaker.

"Very truly yours,

"MARY LADISLAS WHITAKER."

"Dated, you see, the day after the report of your death was published
here."

"But why?" demanded Whitaker, dumfounded. "_Why?_"

"I infer she felt herself somehow honour-bound by the monetary
obligation," said the lawyer. "In her understanding your marriage of
convenience was nothing more--a one-sided bargain, I think you said she
called it. She couldn't consider herself wholly free, even though you
were dead, until she had repaid this loan which you, a stranger, had
practically forced upon her--if not to you, to your estate."

"But death cancels everything--"

"Not," Drummond reminded him with a slow smile, "the obligation of a
period of decent mourning that devolves upon a widow. Mrs. Whitaker may
have desired to marry again immediately. If I'm any judge of human
nature, she argued that repayment of the loan wiped out every
obligation. Feminine logic, perhaps, but--"

"Good Lord!" Whitaker breathed, appalled in the face of this contingency
which had seemed so remote and immaterial when he was merely Hugh
Morten, bachelor-nomad, to all who knew him on the far side of the
world.

Drummond dropped his head upon his hand and regarded his friend with
inquisitive eyes.

"Looks as though you may have gummed things up neatly--doesn't it?"

Whitaker nodded in sombre abstraction.

"You may not," continued Drummond with light malice, "have been so
generous, so considerate and chivalric, afte