was
two o'clock before I started at the sound of my own.

Fulton was at the other end of the telephone, not Lucy. He sounded
very much upset and depressed: "Lucy would like to see you right away,
if you can come round."

"Of course."

We said no more.

Her face was white and tear-stained. I had no sooner closed the door
of their sitting-room behind me, than she flung herself upon my breast
and burst into a storm of sobs. After a long time words began to
mingle with the sobs.

"It will kill me. Why does he want me to die? . . . I've only got
you. . . . I want to belong to you--to you."

I talked and I talked, and I soothed and I soothed, but she was sick
with grief and pain and a kind of insane resentment, as if she had gone
through a major operation without an anesthetic. It would have been
horrible to see anybody suffer so. And she was the woman I loved! The
strain was so great upon me that at last my powers of resistance
snapped. I flung honor to the winds, and became strong with
resolution. And now my words seemed to pierce her consciousness and to
calm her.

"It's all right, Lucy." I had to speak loudly at first, as if she was
deaf. "You shan't suffer like this. I tell you you shan't--not if I
am damned to hell."

I knew now that she was listening, the sobs became muffled and less
frequent. "It's you and me against the world now," I said. "There'll
be no more flimflamming. I promised John to wait a year. That doesn't
matter. A promise made at your expense won't hold. . . . When is your
husband coming back?"

". . . hour," was all the answer I got. . . .

"Then there's not much time left. Try to pull yourself together.
We've got to make all our plans right now, and there's not much time."

"You will take me away?"

"Of course. Now listen. There's no sense in putting your husband on
his guard. Let him think that we are both agreed to the year's
probation. I'll look up things and engage passage. I'll do that this
afternoon. Tonight I'll go to Hot Springs to see my father and get
money. My own balance is very low, unfortunately. Day after tomorrow
I'll be in town again. Now, how are we going to communicate?"

I can't say that she was calm now, but she no longer sobbed, and her
mind was in working order again.

"By telephone," she said. "Every morning when I know John's plans for
the day I'll let you know, and so you'll know when to call me up."

Already the anticipati