Dodger did not understand the nature of women or the mysteries of the female heart, and he evidently thought this poor woman very foolish to cling with such pertinacity to a man like Curtis Waring.
“Do you mind telling me how you came to marry him?” he asked.
“It was over four years ago that I met him in this city,” was the reply. “I am a San Francisco girl. I had never been out of California. I was considered pretty then,” she added, with a remnant of pride, “faded as I am to-day.”
Looking closely in her face, Dodger was ready to believe this.
Grief and privation had changed her appearance, but it had not altogether effaced the bloom and beauty of youth.
“At any rate, he seemed to think so. He was living at the Palace Hotel, and I made his acquaintance at a small social gathering at the house of my uncle. I am an orphan, and was perhaps the more ready to marry on that account.”
“Did Mr. Waring represent himself as wealthy?”
“He said he had expectations from a wealthy relative, but did not mention where he lived.”
“He told the truth, then.”
“We married, securing apartments on Kearney Street. We lived together till my child was born, and for three months afterward. Then Mr. Waring claimed to be called away from San Francisco on business. He said he might be absent six weeks. He left me a hundred dollars, and urged me to be careful of it, as he was short of money, and needed considerable for the expenses of the journey. He left me, and I have never seen or heard from him since.”