CHAPTER X
Once the battle was joined, a fierce desire for haste impelled all of these people. Kedzie dreaded every hour's delay as a new risk of losing Strathdene, who was showing an increasing rage at having the name of his wife-to-be bandied about in the press, with her portraits in formal pose or snapped by batteries of reporters.
Her lawyer emphasized the heartbreak it was to her to learn that her adored husband had been led astray by her trusted friend. This did not make pleasant reading for the jealous Strathdene, and he wished himself jolly well out of the whole affair.
It was not long before his own name began to slip into the case by innuendo. Once he was in, he could not decently abandon his Kedzie, though he had to prove his devotion by denying it and threatening to shoot anybody who implied that his interest in Mrs. Dyckman was anything more than formal.
Jim Dyckman was impatient to have done with the suit, however it ended. He was tossed on both horns of the dilemma. He was compelled to fight one woman to save another. He could not defend Charity without striking Kedzie and he could not spare Kedzie without destroying Charity.
In a situation that would have overwhelmed the greatest tacticians he floundered miserably. He vowed that whatever the outcome of the case might be, he would never look at a woman again. Men find it very easy to condemn womankind en bloc, and they are forever forswearing the sex as if it were a unit or a bad habit.
During the necessary delay in reaching trial Jim asked and received an extension of his leave of absence; then his regiment came home from the Border and was mustered out of the Federal service and received again into the State control. Jim felt almost as much ashamed of involving his regiment in his scandal as Charity.
He had suffered so greatly from the embarrassment of the publicity that he could hardly endure to face his regiment and drill with his company. He offered his resignation again, but it was not accepted.