or
instance, that for a long while your wife has not loved you, that you
have been living on her as any pensioner might, that you have been
running around with as many as six or seven women in as many years or
less. For months I have been acting as your wife's financial adviser,
and in that time, with the aid of detectives, I have learned of Anna
Stelmak, Jessie Laska, Bertha Reese, Georgia Du Coin--do I need to say
any more? As a matter of fact, I have a number of your letters in my
possession."

"Saw that ees it!" exclaimed Sohlberg, while Cowperwood eyed him
fixedly. "You have been running around weeth my wife? Eet ees true,
then. A fine situation! And you come here now weeth these threats,
these lies to booldoze me. Haw! We weel see about them. We weel see
what I can do. Wait teel I can consult a lawyer first. Then we weel
see!"

Cowperwood surveyed him coldly, angrily. "What an ass!" he thought.

"See here," he said, urging Sohlberg, for privacy's sake, to come down
into the lower hall, and then into the street before the sanitarium,
where two gas-lamps were fluttering fitfully in the dark and wind, "I
see very plainly that you are bent on making trouble. It is not enough
that I have assured you that there is nothing in this--that I have
given you my word. You insist on going further. Very well, then.
Supposing for argument's sake that Mrs. Cowperwood was not insane; that
every word she said was true; that I had been misconducting myself with
your wife? What of it? What will you do?"

He looked at Sohlberg smoothly, ironically, while the latter flared up.

"Haw!" he shouted, melodramatically. "Why, I would keel you, that's
what I would do. I would keel her. I weel make a terrible scene.
Just let me knaw that this is so, and then see!"

"Exactly," replied Cowperwood, grimly. "I thought so. I believe you.
For that reason I have come prepared to serve you in just the way you
wish." He reached in his coat and took out two small revolvers, which
he had taken from a drawer at home for this very purpose. They gleamed
in the dark. "Do you see these?" he continued. "I am going to save
you the trouble of further investigation, Mr. Sohlberg. Every word
that Mrs. Cowperwood said to-night--and I am saying this with a full
understanding of what this means to you and to me--is true. She is no
more insane than I am. Your wife has been living in an apartment with
me on the North Side for months, though yo