"I guess we can fix it all right," came Fred's voice in the telephone. "But you'd better come over with the check. There's about six hundred dollars in the club till. I have a couple of hundred with me. And we can raise the rest."
Pendleton heard him.
"Go ahead," he said. "I'll fix up about a berth with the head porter in the meanwhile."
"What's the big idea?" was Fred's greeting, as I entered the club.
"Private," I told him laconically. "Sending a man to the antipodes because he's unfit to live in this climate."
"Oh—sick man?" Fred was sympathetic.
"Very sick," I told him. "Incurable,"
Fifteen minutes later I was in the hotel, handing Pendleton the money.
"Now what d'you want me to sign?" he queried carelessly.
"Not a thing," I answered. For on a sudden the futility of holding Pendleton to any bond overwhelmed me. Any respite, even a few weeks from his presence, seemed a paradise. Paradise seemed cheap at a thousand dollars. And who can safeguard paradise? Besides, if I knew my man at all, it would be some time before he would return to an environment he so thoroughly loathed. I was no more safe with his signature than without—and no less.