Dr. Alftmont said simply, “I made a discovery. As Amelia had developed those tendencies which were so distasteful to me, I had been gradually falling out of love with her and in love with Vivian. I made the discovery when I met Vivian in San Francisco. After that, I couldn’t go back, drag her name through the mud, and — well, we knew we loved each other then. We only wanted to be together. We were young. I wanted to go away and begin all over again. Probably it was foolish of me, although as events have turned out, it was for the best.
“I telephoned Amelia and asked her what she wanted. Her terms were simple. She wanted everything. She’d give me my freedom. I could clear out and begin all over again. I had some travellers’ cheques, several thousand dollars. She didn’t know about those. I’d been afraid of the boom activities of Oakview and had distrusted the bank.”
“Then what?” I asked.
He said, “That’s virtually all there is to it. I took her at her word. She said she’d go ahead and get the divorce, that I could change my name and start practicing somewhere else, that as soon as the decree was final, I could marry Vivian. I accepted her terms.”
“Do you know exactly what happened?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I understand Amelia and Steve Dun-ton had a falling out. I don’t know. She left Oakview and vanished.”
“Why didn’t you quietly sue for a divorce somewhere else?” I asked.
“She found me,” he said. “I received a letter from her stating that she would never let me cast a mantle of respectability over Vivian, that if I ever tried to marry Vivian she would appear and make trouble, that if I ever filed a divorce suit she’d expose the whole thing — by that time, living with Vivian as man and wife, she could have made a perfect case — and a scandal.”
“She knew where you were?”
“Yes.”