"But Golda!" she said.
"Oh, Golda!" He dismissed the adventuress impatiently. "Now I'll tell you all about that some time, dear——"
"But, Wallace, it's—it's ALL RIGHT?" Martie must turn the knife in the wound now, there must be no more doubt.
"All RIGHT?" The old bombastic, triumphant voice! "Her husband's alive, if you call THAT all right!"
"Her husband?" Martie's voice died in a sort of faintness.
"Sure! She was married six years before I ever saw her. Uncle Chess says he heard it, and then forgot it, you know the way you do? I've been to Portland and Uncle Chess was bully. His old lawyer, whom he consulted at the time I left there, was dead, but we dug up the license bureau and found what we were after. She had been married all right and her husband's still living. We found him in the Home for Incurables up there; been there fifteen years. I got a copy of her marriage license from the Registrar and if Mrs. Golda White Ferguson ever turns up again we'll see who does the talking about bigamy! The she-devil! And I told you about meeting Dawson?"
"Oh, God, I thank Thee—I thank Thee!" Martie was breathing to herself, her eyes closed. "Dawson?" she asked, when he repeated the name.
Wallace had straightened up; it was quite in his old manner that he said:
"I—would—rather work for Emory Dawson than for any man I know of in New York!"
"Oh, a manager?"