asked: "Where's Undine?"

Mr. Spragg glanced at the calendar that hung from a hat-peg on the door.
Then he released the Masonic emblem from his grasp, drew out his watch
and consulted it critically.

"If the train's on time I presume she's somewhere between Chicago and
Omaha round about now."

Ralph stared at him, wondering if the heat had gone to his head. "I
don't understand."

"The Twentieth Century's generally considered the best route to Dakota,"
explained Mr. Spragg, who pronounced the word ROWT.

"Do you mean to say Undine's in the United States?"

Mr. Spragg's lower lip groped for the phantom tooth-pick. "Why, let me
see: hasn't Dakota been a state a year or two now?"

"Oh, God--" Ralph cried, pushing his chair back violently and striding
across the narrow room.

As he turned, Mr. Spragg stood up and advanced a few steps. He had given
up the quest for the tooth-pick, and his drawn-in lips were no more
than a narrow depression in his beard. He stood before Ralph, absently
shaking the loose change in his trouser-pockets.

Ralph felt the same hardness and lucidity that had come to him when he
had heard his sister's answer.

"She's gone, you mean? Left me? With another man?"

Mr. Spragg drew himself up with a kind of slouching majesty. "My
daughter is not that style. I understand Undine thinks there have been
mistakes on both sides. She considers the tie was formed too hastily. I
believe desertion is the usual plea in such cases."

Ralph stared about him, hardly listening. He did not resent his
father-in-law's tone. In a dim way he guessed that Mr. Spragg was
suffering hardly less than himself. But nothing was clear to him save
the monstrous fact suddenly upheaved in his path. His wife had left him,
and the plan for her evasion had been made and executed while he lay
helpless: she had seized the opportunity of his illness to keep him in
ignorance of her design. The humour of it suddenly struck him and he
laughed.

"Do you mean to tell me that Undine's divorcing ME?"

"I presume that's her plan," Mr. Spragg admitted.

"For desertion?" Ralph pursued, still laughing.

His father-in-law hesitated a moment; then he answered: "You've always
done all you could for my daughter. There wasn't any other plea she
could think of. She presumed this would be the most agreeable to your
family."

"It was good of her to think of that!"

Mr. Spragg's only comment was a sigh.

"Does she imagine I won't fight