r all."

"Oh, cut that!" growled Whitaker, unhappily. "I never meant to come
back."

"Then why did you?"

"Oh ... I don't know. Chiefly because I caught Anne Presbury's sharp
eyes on me in Melbourne--as I said a while ago. I knew she'd talk--as
she surely will the minute she gets back--and I thought I might as well
get ahead of her, come home and face the music before anybody got a
chance to expose me. At the worst--if what you suggest has really
happened--it's an open-and-shut case; no one's going to blame the woman;
and it ought to be easy enough to secure a separation or divorce--"

"You'd consent to that?" inquired Drummond intently.

"I'm ready to do anything she wishes, within the law."

"You leave it to her, then?"

"If I ever find her--yes. It's the only decent thing I can do."

"How do you figure that?"

"I went away a sick man and a poor one; I come back as sound as a bell,
and if not exactly a plutocrat, at least better off than I ever expected
to be in this life.... To all intents and purposes I _made_ her a
partner to a bargain she disliked; well, I'll be hanged if I'm going to
hedge now, when I look a better matrimonial risk, perhaps: if she still
wants my name, she can have it."

Drummond laughed quietly. "If that's how you feel," he said, "I can only
give you one piece of professional advice."

"What's that?"

"Find your wife."

After a moment of puzzled thought, Whitaker admitted ruefully: "You're
right. There's the rub."

"I'm afraid you won't find it an easy job. I did my best without
uncovering a trace of her."

"You followed up that letter, of course?"

"I did my best; but, my dear fellow, almost anybody with a decent
appearance can manage to write a note on Waldorf stationery. I made sure
of one thing--the management knew nothing of the writer under either her
maiden name or yours."

"Did you try old Thurlow?"

"Her father died within eight weeks from the time you ran away. He left
everything to charity, by the way. Unforgiving blighter."

"Well, there's her sister, Mrs. Pettit."

"She heard of the marriage first through me," asserted Drummond. "Your
wife had never come near her--nor even sent her a line. She could give
me no information whatever."

"You don't think she purposely misled you--?"

"Frankly I don't. She seemed sincerely worried, when we talked the
matter over, and spoke in a most convincing way of her fruitless
attempts to trace the young woman through a