heaven's sake, let's be calm."

"Calm--when you say in your letter, 'you need not be afraid, I meditate
no harm?'--do you mean to imply that, under any circumstance, I would be
afraid of you?"

"Johnnie, there is only one way to settle this ... I'm set on getting
the complete evidence for a divorce ... exactly where is Hildreth now?"

"None of your damned business ... all I can say is that she is somewhere
near here ... and she's sick and hysterical through your persecutions
... and if you don't call off your snooping detectives, by the Lord God,
if I run into any of them, I'll try to kill them."

"Johnnie, it's the best thing to deliver the legal evidence and have it
over with. Let me accompany you to where Hildreth is, and--"

"If she set eyes on you," I replied, "she'd fly at you and scratch your
eyes out--in her present mood."

"Only _show_ me where she is, then--point out the place."

"If I find you snooping around, you'll need hospital attention for a
long time."

"Then you won't help facilitate the proceedings, secretly?"

"No, since you've begun this game, find out what you can yourself. What
do you think I am?"

"A very foolish young man to treat me so when I am still your best
friend."

"Here comes the north-bound train. You hop aboard and go on back to New
York."

Seething with rage, I caught Penton Baxter by the arm and thrust him up
the steps....

* * * * *

Next morning came a letter from Darrie, from the Martha Washington. We
were the talk of the town, she told us.

She had tried to keep Penton from employing detectives to follow us. She
advised us to return to New York--we must be out of money by this
time....

Hildreth could stay at her mother's and father's flat till we made
further arrangements for going off some place together.

* * * * *

"Darling, if we return from what has proven to be a wild-goose chase,
will you promise me not to become disheartened, to lose faith in me?"

"Of course not, Johnnie ... I think Darrie offered very good advice,"
she sighed.

Back we turned, by the next day's train, full of a sense of frustration;
what an involved, unromantic, practical world we lived in!

* * * * *

Hildreth heaved a sigh of content as we walked into her mother's flat
again. Her mother was still at Eden ... alone ... taking care of Daniel,
for whom she had a great love.

We ha