"Oh, cut that!" growled Whitaker, unhappily. "I never meant to come back."
"Then why did you?"
"Oh ... I don't know. Chiefly because I caught Anne Presbury's sharp eyes on me in Melbourne—as I said a while ago. I knew she'd talk—as she surely will the minute she gets back—and I thought I might as well get ahead of her, come home and face the music before anybody got a chance to expose me. At the worst—if what you suggest has really happened—it's an open-and-shut case; no one's going to blame the woman; and it ought to be easy enough to secure a separation or divorce—"
"You'd consent to that?" inquired Drummond intently.
"I'm ready to do anything she wishes, within the law."
"You leave it to her, then?"
"If I ever find her—yes. It's the only decent thing I can do."
"How do you figure that?"
"I went away a sick man and a poor one; I come back as sound as a bell, and if not exactly a plutocrat, at least better off than I ever expected to be in this life.... To all intents and purposes I made her a partner to a bargain she disliked; well, I'll be hanged if I'm going to hedge now, when I look a better matrimonial risk, perhaps: if she still wants my name, she can have it."
Drummond laughed quietly. "If that's how you feel," he said, "I can only give you one piece of professional advice."