Curtiss was on his feet, his face livid.
"But she sha'n't fight it out by herself!" he cried. "Do you think I'm such a coward as that—to stand back, not offering to help?"
"Perhaps you can't help," I interposed.
"Don't talk nonsense!" he retorted. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Lester, but I'm overwrought—I can't choose my words. But it is nonsense. I love her—of course I can help. Don't you see, it's not herself she's thinking of—she's trying to spare me."
I nodded. Perhaps it was for his sake that Marcia Lawrence had taken that wild step. That would be like a woman.
"You may be right," I said. "I'd never thought of that solution, but Mrs. Lawrence's last words to me would seem to point that way. She said that the matter would rest in your hands—that it would be for you to choose, after you'd heard the story."
"I don't want to hear the story!" Curtiss cried. "Good God! What do I care for the story! I've made my choice, once and forever! I want her! Of course it was to spare me she ran away! She'd never think of herself!"
I might have retorted that it had been a rather questionable form of mercy; that she could scarcely have inflicted on him any suffering more acute than that which he had undergone. But I forbore; instead, I took the telegram again and studied it.
"If you really wish to find her," I said, "perhaps this will give us a clue."
"I do wish to find her."