is young wife _carte blanche_ to do what she chose with
his old house. She would waste money more lavishly even than he had
wasted it when he had employed the services of the Searchlight
Investigation Bureau. What, after all, were these cushion-footed sleuths
but blackmailers of a legalized sort? He dismissed lightly the
circumstance that such enterprises fatten upon the support of gentlemen
who have work to do which more open methods fail to favor. This process
of thought permitted his armor of self-righteousness to be worn in
accord with thrift and the accomplishment of his wishes and to remain
the while undented by self-accusation.

* * * * *

The first days of her wedding trip had been marked, for Conscience, by a
numbed vagueness, which brought a kindly blunting of all her emotions.
In that coma-like condition she could be outwardly normal while inwardly
she was living a life of unrealities. She had fought that dangerous
comfort as a surrender to phantasy until in a measure she had conquered
it.

She had fought steadfastly against all the insurgent influences in her
heart aroused by the belated telegram, as one fights the influence of a
drug. It was not Eben Tollman's fault--ran her logic--that this message
from Egypt had drawn Stuart Farquaharson dangerously close to his wife's
inmost thoughts at a time when, she had told herself, he must henceforth
be kept in the far background.

But there was no escaping the reality that the cablegram and the letter
had brought definite results. They had lifted Stuart out of his place in
the past and drawn him into the present. He had not been guilty of
desertion, but was, like herself, the victim of a hideous and
inexplicable mistake.

It had hurt when Tollman referred to Farquaharson's unfavorable record,
even with the consideration of tone he had employed. But Conscience told
herself that her duty lay less in defense of the man whom she had once
loved and who had fallen from his pedestal than in the square facing of
present facts.

Her husband had alluded to Stuart with neither rancor nor resentment but
in kindliness and fair judgment. Now, at all events, she argued wildly,
seeking to coerce her heart, it was to Eben and not to Stuart that she
owed loyalty. So, while her husband sat in his study regretting that he
had conceded too much to his fears of unmasking, she wrestled in her
room with rebellious heart fires, kindled by the letter f