“Why so? Most men do, don’t they?”
“West didn’t. He never cared much about women.”
“He must have, from what I heard.”
“Why so?” Donald shifted uneasily in his chair.
“It’s a queer story. I suppose the nurse ought not to have told me, but she must have thought I was a very dear friend of his. It seems he was terribly in love with some married woman here in New York—wrote to her every day, almost—up to the last. I understand she did to him, too.”
“A married woman?” cried Donald, in astonishment. “I don’t believe it. I knew Billy West intimately. He had scarcely any woman friends. It’s hardly likely he could have been carrying on such an affair without my knowing it. I saw him every day, almost.”
Hall took out his cigarette-case and lighted a fresh cigarette. “I don’t know,” he replied. “That’s what the nurse said. She used to read him her letters. They had arranged that she was to leave her husband, and she and West were going to run away together—to Europe. He’d gone out to Denver to close up his affairs, and turn all his property into money. They had everything arranged to go as soon as he returned to New York. That’s what made it so hard for him to die.”
Donald gazed at the face of the man opposite him with horrified intentness. “Who was she?” he asked suddenly.
“I haven’t the least idea. I didn’t ask the nurse, and she probably didn’t know. It was the strange outcome of the affair that interested me particularly. I wonder if you heard it.”
Donald looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said slowly.