paper. "I knew you'd see
it; so I wanted to be along with you," he said in a voice like that of a
tragic schoolboy.

Adams turned to him immediately, with a restraint which had succeeded
his first quivering exclamation. "So you knew that Brady's wife meant
to sue for a divorce?" he asked.

Perry bowed his head--in the supreme crisis of experience he had always
found the simple truth to be invested with the dignity of an elaborate
lie. "I had heard it rumoured," was what he said.

"And that my wife--"

"I'll swear I never believed it," broke in Perry, with a violent
assurance.

From the emotion in his voice one would have supposed him, rather than
Adams, to be the injured husband; and the fact was that he probably
suffered more at the instant than he had ever done in the whole course
of his comfortable life.

"Well, I suppose I ought to be very much obliged to you," replied Adams,
with an agonised irony to the injustice of which Perry was perfectly
indifferent, "but I can't see that it matters much so long as the thing
is true."

"But it's a lie," protested Perry with energy. "I mean the whole damned
business."

"What isn't?" demanded Adams bitterly, as he stuffed the crumpled paper
into the pocket of his coat. Then, stopping again as they reached a
crossing, he held out his hand and enclosed Perry's in a cordial grip.

"I'm very grateful to you," he said; "but if you don't mind, I think
I'll walk about a bit alone. I've got to think things over." He
hesitated a moment and then added quietly, "I know you'll stand by me
whatever comes?"

"Stand by you!" gasped Perry, and the sincere response of his whole
impressionable nature brought two large, round tear drops to his eyes;
"by Jove! I'd stand it for you!"

For an instant Adams looked at him in silence, while his familiar smile
flickered about his mouth. Then he reached out his hand for another
grip, before he turned away and walked rapidly into the dim light of the
cross street.

"I must walk about and think things out a bit," he found himself saying
presently in his thoughts; "there's a tangle somewhere--I can't pull it
out."

Stopping under a light he drew the newspaper from his pocket, but as he
unfolded it, one of Connie's wild letters to Brady flashed before his
eyes; and crushing the open sheet in his hand, he flung it from him out
into the gutter. The darkness afforded what seemed to him a physical
shelter for his rage, and as he turned toward