Ashton
had left with her might be saved for his child, she had learned to
type-write, and after four months had been able to support herself.
Within the last month a girl friend, who had known both Ashton and
herself before they were married, had written her that her husband was
living in London. For the sake of her son she had at once determined to
make an effort to seek him out.

"The son, nonsense!" exclaimed the doctor, when Ford retold the story.
"She is not crossing the ocean because she is worried about the future
of her son. She seeks her own happiness. The woman is in love with her
husband."

Ford shook his head.

"I don't know!" he objected. "She's so extravagant in her praise of
Harry that it seems unreal. It sounds insincere. Then, again, when I
swear I will find him she shows a delight that you might describe as
savage, almost vindictive. As though, if I did find Harry, the first
thing she would do would be to stick a knife in him."

"Maybe," volunteered the doctor sadly, "she has heard there is a woman
in the case. Maybe she is the one she's thinking of sticking the knife
into?"

"Well," declared the reporter, "if she doesn't stop looking savage every
time I promise to find Harry I won't find Harry. Why should I act the
part of Fate, anyway? How do I know that Harry hasn't got a wife in
London and several in the States? How do we know he didn't leave his
country for his country's good? That's what it looks like to me. How can
we tell what confronted him the day he went down to the hotel desk to
change his rooms and, instead, got into his touring-car and beat the
speed limit to Canada. Whom did he meet in the hotel corridor? A woman
with a perfectly good marriage certificate, or a detective with a
perfectly good warrant? Or did Harry find out that his bride had a devil
of a temper of her own, and that for him marriage was a failure? The
widow is certainly a very charming young woman, but there may be two
sides to this."

"You are a cynic, sir," protested the doctor.

"That may be," growled the reporter, "but I am not a private detective
agency, or a matrimonial bureau, and before I hear myself saying, 'Bless
you, my children!' both of these young people will have to show me why
they should not be kept asunder."

II

On the afternoon of their arrival in London Ford convoyed Mrs. Ashton to
an old-established private hotel in Craven Street.

"Here," he explained, "you will be within a fe