f her--I can't, and won't!" I cried.

"God help me, I do!" groaned Ralston, and breaking down at last, he
covered his face with his hands.

CHAPTER XII

THE WOMAN IN THE THEATRE

Well, there we had to leave matters for the moment.

Ralston Murray loved us very much, but he didn't wish for our advice.
Indeed, he wished for nothing at all from any one--except to be let
alone.

He had said to Gaby Jennings that he would always want Rosemary back
whatever he heard about her past; but now, believing Gaby's story with
its additional proofs, at all events he had no more hope of getting her
back. In his eyes she was another man's wife. He did not expect to see
her again in this world.

Jim and I could do nothing with him: Jim was helpless because he also,
at heart, believed Gaby, and defended Rosemary only to please me; I had
ceased to be of use, because I could give no reason for my faith in her.
What good to say: "There must be some awful misunderstanding!" when
there were those cablegrams from Baltimore and Washington? Gaby would
not have shown copies of her own messages with the address of her
correspondent, if she hadn't been willing that Murray should make
inquiries as to the man's identity and bona fides.

We could not persuade him to wait, before keeping his promise to Mrs.
Jennings, until he had heard from America. He knew what he should hear,
he said. Besides, a promise was a promise. He didn't care whether Paul
had stolen his heirlooms or not, but there was no proof that he had, and
people must be presumed innocent until they were found to be guilty. Nor
did he care what Jennings' designs on him might be. It was too
far-fetched to suppose that the man had any designs; but no greater
kindness could now be done to him, Ralston, than to put him for ever out
of his misery.

This was mad talk; but in a way Ralston Murray went mad that day when he
lost Rosemary. No doctor, no alienist, would have pronounced him mad, of
course. Rather would I have seemed insane in my defence of Rosemary
Brandreth. But when the man's heart broke, something snapped in his
brain. All was darkness there. He had turned his back on hope, and could
not bear to hear the word.

We did persuade him, in justice to Rosemary, to let us cable a New York
detective agency whose head Jim had known well. This man was instructed
to learn whether Gaby's friend had told the truth about Captain
Brandreth and his wife: whether she had sailed