"So Clifford is your man?"
"Yes! I took him off my system and sent him down here as soon as I got Kirk's idiotic, impudent letter—" The old man began to sputter with indignation. "What d'you think he wrote me, Mrs. Cortlandt? He had the impudence to turn down a good job I offered him because 'his wife might not like our climate!' Imagine! And I had positively begged him to come back—on any terms. Of course, it gave me an awful scare, and I lost no time in learning if it was true. Thank God, he had sense enough not to do that!"
"Then you don't know?"
"Know what?"
"That he is married."
"DAMNATION!" roared Anthony, furiously.
She nodded. "A Miss Garavel. They were married a—week ago." She broke down miserably and hid her face in her hands. He strode to her with a light of understanding in his eyes. Laying a great hand upon her drooping head, he exclaimed with wonderful softness:
"My dear Mrs. Cortlandt, I'm very sorry for you, indeed I am. How the boy ever let you go for any other woman I don't see, but he's always been a fool—that's why he never cared for me. Now, now, try to face it squarely—all good women are brave, and you're a good woman. We both love him, and I know we can save him if we pull together."
"Yes, yes!" She raised her drawn, white face eagerly to his. "It will only take a word, but I have been like a mad woman. I couldn't bear to give him up, and when I learned the truth I thought I could let him—suffer. But I couldn't. Oh, I couldn't, and I knew it all the time. I was distracted, that is all. You see I have no shame in telling you this, for he is the first and only man—"
"I know." He patted her in a way that said more than words.