later my
uncle wrote me that she had sent him a newspaper notice of her
marriage, and he had sent her the check. I'll never forget reading that
letter. I'd been worrying myself black in the face, but that day I went
on a bust, I can tell you!"

"That marriage would cancel the other?" Martie asked, with a dry throat.

"Sure it would!" he said easily.

"But now--now----" she pursued fearfully.

"Now she's turned up," he said, a shadow falling on his heavy face
again. "She was at the theatre last night. God knows what she's been
doing all these years; she looks awful. She saw my picture in some
paper, and she came straight to the city. She found out where I lived,
and this morning, while you were at church, Mabel came in and said a
lady wanted to see me. I took her to breakfast. I didn't know what to
do with her--and we talked."

"And what does she say, Wallie--what does she want?"

"Oh, she wants anything she can get! She doesn't know that I'm married.
If she did, I suppose she might make herself unpleasant along that
line!"

"But she has no claim on you! She married another man!"

"She says now that she never was married to Prendergast!"

"But she WAS!" Martie said hotly. Her voice dropped vaguely. Her eyes
were fixed and glassy with growing apprehension. "Perhaps she was lying
about that," she whispered, as if to herself.

"She'd lie about anything!" Wallace supplied.

"But if she wasn't, Wallace, if she wasn't--then would that second
marriage cancel the first?" she asked feverishly.

"I should THINK so!" he answered. "Shouldn't you?"

"Shouldn't _I_?" she echoed, with her first flash of anger. "Why, what
do _I_ know about it? What do _I_ know about it? I don't know anything!
You come to me with this now--NOW!"

"Don't talk like that!" he pleaded. "I feel--I feel awfully about it,
Martie! I can't tell you how I feel! But the whole thing was so long
ago it had sort of gone out of my mind. Every fellow does things that
he's ashamed of, Mart--things that he's sorry for; but you always think
that you'll marry some day, and have kids, and that the world will go
on like it always has----"

The fire suddenly died out of Martie. In a deadly calm she sat back
against her pillows, and began to gather up her masses of loosened hair.

"If she is right----" she began, and stopped.

"She's not right, I tell you!" Wallace said. "She hasn't got a leg to
stand on!"

"No," Martie conceded lifelessly, patiently. "Bu