he told her. "I kept feeling I
'd find something there more than I got hold of in his voice and the
grip of his hand."

"He has blue eyes," she told him, "and they are clean as a child's."

"They are a bit sad?"

"Monte's eyes sad?" she exclaimed. "What made you think so?"

"Perhaps because, from what he let drop the other night, I gathered he
was n't altogether happy with Mrs. Covington."

"He told you that?"

"No; not directly," he assured her. "He's too loyal. I may be utterly
mistaken; only he was rather vague as to why she was not here with him."

"She was not with him," Marjory answered slowly. "She was not with him
because she was n't big enough to deserve him."

"Then it's a fact there's a tragedy in his life?"

"Not in his--in hers," she answered passionately.

"How can that be?"

"Because she's the one who realizes the truth."

"But she's the one who went away."

"Because of that. It's a miserable story, Peter."

"You knew her intimately?"

"A great many years."

"I think Covington said he had known you a long time."

"Yes."

"Then, knowing her and knowing him, was n't there anything you could
do?"

"I did what I could," she answered wearily.

"Perhaps that explains why he hurried back to her."

"He has n't gone to her. He'll never go back to her. She deserted
him, and now--he's going to make it permanent."

"A divorce?"

"Yes, Peter," she answered, with a little shiver.

"You're taking it hard."

"I know all that he means to her," she choked.

"She loves him?"

"With all her heart and soul."

"And he does n't know it?"

"Why, he would n't believe it--if she told him. She can never let him
know it. She'd deny it if he asked her. She loves him enough for
that."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Peter. "There's a mistake there somewhere."

"The mistake came first," she ran on. "Oh, I don't know why I'm
telling you these things, except that it is a relief to tell them to
some one."

"Tell me all about it," he encouraged her. "I knew there was something
on your mind."

"Peter," she said earnestly, "can you imagine a woman so selfish that
she wanted to marry just to escape the responsibilities of marriage?"

"It is n't possible," he declared.

Her cheeks were a vivid scarlet. Had he been able to see them, she
could not have gone on.

"A woman so selfish," she faltered ahead, "that she preferred a
make-believe husband to a real husband, because--because so she t