ells you is the last word. And, if he says--"

Jeanne swung toward him and with all the jealousy of possession held
his hand. Her own eyes were blurred with tears.

"He will tell you the others are wrong!" she cried. "I know he will. He
must! You--who have always been so kind! God could not be so cruel!"

Jimmie stopped her.

"If I am not to see _you_--"

During his last week at home Jimmie had invented a Doctor Picard, a
distinguished French oculist, who, on a tour of the world, was by the
rarest chance at that moment in New York. According to Jimmie, all the
other oculists had insisted he must consult Picard, and might consider
what Picard said as final. Picard was staying with a friend--Jimmie did
not say where--and after receiving Jimmie was at once taking the train
for San Francisco. As Jimmie had arranged his scenario, it was Picard
who was to deal him his death sentence.

Her husband seemed so entirely to depend on what Picard might say that
Jeanne decided, should the verdict be unfavorable, she had best be at
his side. But, as this would have upset Jimmie's plan, he argued against
it. Should the news be bad, he pointed out, for her to receive it in her
own home would be much easier for both. Jeanne felt she had been
rebuffed, but that, if Jimmie did not want her with him, she no longer
was in a position to insist.

So she contented herself with driving him to the train and, before those
who knew them at the station, kissing him good-by.

Afterward, that she had done so comforted her greatly.

"I'll be praying for you, Jimmie," she whispered. "And, as soon as you
know, you'll--"

So upset was Jimmie by the kiss, and by the knowledge that he was saying
farewell for the last time, that he nearly exposed his purpose.

"I want the last thing I say to you," he stammered, "to be this: that
whatever you do will be right. I love you so that I will understand."

When he arrived in New York, in his own name, he booked a stateroom on
the _Ceramic_. She was listed to sail that evening after midnight. It
was because she departed at that hour that for a week Jimmie had fixed
upon her as furnishing the scene of his exit. During the day he told
several of his friends that the report of the great oculist had been
against him. Later, they recalled that he talked wildly, that he was
deeply despondent. In the afternoon he sent a telegram to Jeanne:

"Verdict unfavorable. Will remain to-night in town.
All love. J."