heartening laugh, and Martie, quieted, sat on the arm of her husband's
chair, feeling again the delicious comfort of his arm about her, and
smiling with dark lashes still wet.

After a while they were alone, and then they talked freely.

"Wallie--only tell me this! Have you got enough money to get me away
somewhere? I can't stay here! You see that! Oh, dearest, if you
knew----"

"Get you away! Why, you're going with me! We're going to New York!"

Her bewildered eyes were fixed upon him with dawning hope.

"But Golda!" she said.

"Oh, Golda!" He dismissed the adventuress impatiently. "Now I'll tell
you all about that some time, dear----"

"But, Wallace, it's--it's ALL RIGHT?" Martie must turn the knife in the
wound now, there must be no more doubt.

"All RIGHT?" The old bombastic, triumphant voice! "Her husband's alive,
if you call THAT all right!"

"Her husband?" Martie's voice died in a sort of faintness.

"Sure! She was married six years before I ever saw her. Uncle Chess
says he heard it, and then forgot it, you know the way you do? I've
been to Portland and Uncle Chess was bully. His old lawyer, whom he
consulted at the time I left there, was dead, but we dug up the license
bureau and found what we were after. She had been married all right and
her husband's still living. We found him in the Home for Incurables up
there; been there fifteen years. I got a copy of her marriage license
from the Registrar and if Mrs. Golda White Ferguson ever turns up again
we'll see who does the talking about bigamy! The she-devil! And I told
you about meeting Dawson?"

"Oh, God, I thank Thee--I thank Thee!" Martie was breathing to herself,
her eyes closed. "Dawson?" she asked, when he repeated the name.

Wallace had straightened up; it was quite in his old manner that he
said:

"I--would--rather work for Emory Dawson than for any man I know of in
New York!"

"Oh, a manager?"

"The coming manager--you mark what I say!"

"And you met him?" Martie was asking the dutiful questions; but her
face rested against her husband's as she talked, and she was crying a
little, in joy and relief.

For answer Wallace gently dislodged her, so that he might take from his
pocket a letter, the friendly letter that the manager had dashed off.

"He swears he'll book me!" Wallace said, refolding the letter. "He said
he needs me, and I need him. I borrowed two hundred from Uncle Chess,
and now it's us to the bright lights, Baby!"

"