choking, and during the drive to
Greenriver he had rumpled his hair so wildly that it stood up in mad
disorder over his head. His face was dusty, the mist had soaked his
clothes till they clung tightly to his narrow frame, and about his whole
figure there was an air of unkempt desolation which was unattractive in
the extreme.

"I allude to Toni--your wife, if you like to call her that." The
unfortunate young man was distraught between disappointment and anxiety.
"Where is she? Has she come home after all?"

"My wife?" Owen raised his eyebrows superciliously. "My good man, what
are you talking about? If you know anything about Mrs. Rose be kind
enough to tell us at once what it is, but please remember she is not
Toni--to you."

"Oh, isn't she?" Beneath the weight of conflicting emotions Mr. Dowson
was losing his head. "Well, she was going to be, that's all. She came
away with me to-night of her own free will ... and we wore going to
cross to Paris, and then ... oh, I don't know what then, but anyway she
was going to stay with me, and when you had divorced her----"

"Divorced her?" Owen uttered the words in so ferocious a tone that the
young man fell back a pace. "What the devil do you mean by making a
suggestion of that sort? And why in God's name should I divorce my
wife--for you?"

The scorn with which he spoke the last two words drove Leonard Dowson to
frenzy.

"Why? Why not? You never loved her--you never knew how to treat her. You
made her miserable, you let her see you thought her inferior to you, not
good enough for you ... you wouldn't dismiss that woman you had to help
you though you knew To--your wife hated her...."

He was lashing himself to greater and greater fury at the thought of
Toni's sufferings.

"Even when you'd made her so wretched that she was ready to die, she
still thought of you. She knew I loved her as she deserved to be loved,
and she was coming away with me, not because she loved me, but because
she thought by leaving you she'd set you free--free to divorce her, to
cast her off, to marry someone else, for all I know--some lady whom
you'd perhaps be pleased to call your equal."

Beneath his savage indictment even Owen stood dumb. There is always
something electrifying about absolute sincerity, and no one, listening,
could possibly doubt that the man was speaking from the very depth of
his soul.

As he stood panting, glaring at Owen with hatred in his eyes, Herrick
stepped forward