de good use of his
time! _I_ only got wind of it an hour or two ago, of course quite by
accident, and I haven't seen the fellow since; but he's particularly
keen on his letters, and either he explains himself to my satisfaction
or I make an example of him before the hotel. It's a thing I never
dreamt of doing in my life, and I'm sorry the poor beast is such a
scarecrow; but it's a duty to punish that sort of crime against a woman,
and now I'm sure you'll lend me one of your sticks. I am only sorry I
didn't bring one with me."

"But wait a bit, my dear fellow," said I, for he was actually holding
out his hand: "you have still to tell me what the report was."

"Divorce!" he answered in a tragic voice. "Clephane, the fellow says she
was divorced in India, and that it was--that it was her fault!"

He turned away his face. It was in a flame.

"And you are going to thrash Quinby for saying that?"

"If he sticks to it, I most certainly am," said Bob, the fire settling
in his blue eyes.

"I should think twice about it, Bob, if I were you."

"My dear man, what else do you suppose I have been thinking of all the
afternoon?"

"It will make a fresh scandal, you see."

"I can't help that."

And Bob shut his mouth with a self-willed snap.

"But what good will it do?"

"A liar will be punished, that's all! It's no use talking, Clephane; my
mind is made up."

"But are you so sure that it's a lie?" I was obliged to say it at last,
reluctantly enough, yet with a wretched feeling that I might just as
well have said it in the beginning.

"Sure?" he echoed, his innocent eyes widening before mine. "Why, of
course I'm sure! You don't know what pals we've been. Of course I never
asked questions, but she's told me heaps and heaps of things; it would
fit in with some of them, if it were true."

Then I told him that it was true, and how I knew that it was true, and
my reason for having kept all that knowledge to myself until now. "I
could not give her away even to you, Bob, nor yet tell you that I had
known her before; for you would have been certain to ask when and how;
and it was in her first husband's time, and under his name."

It was a comfort to be quite honest for once with one of them, and it is
a relief even now to remember that I was absolutely honest with Bob
Evers about this. He said almost at once that he would have done the
same himself, and even as he spoke his whole manner changed toward me.
His face had darke