“So I drew my hands up under my chin and thought awhile and said:  ’I think I’d say something like this, sir: 

“’"My dear wife—­I’ve been trying to think all this while what has driven you away, and I don’t understand.  I love you, Fanny Montrose, and I want you to come back to me.  And if you’re afraid to come, I want to tell you not a word will pass my lips on the subject; for I haven’t forgotten that it was you made a man of me; and much as I try, I cannot hate you, Fanny Montrose."’

“He looked down and wrote for a minute, and then he handed me the paper and said:  ‘Send that.’

“I looked, and saw it was what I had told him, and I said doubtfully:  ‘Do you think that is best?’

“‘I do.’

“So I mailed the letter as he said, and three days after came one from a lawyer, saying my wife could have no communication with me, and would I send what I had to say to him.

“So I went down to Gilday and told him, and I said:  ’We must think of other things, sir, since she likes luxury and those things better; for I’m beginning to think that’s it—­and there I’m a bit to blame, for I did encourage her.  Well, she’ll have to marry him—­that’s all I can see to it,” I said, and sat very quiet.

“‘He won’t marry her,’ he said in his quick way.

“I thought he meant because she was bound to me, so I said:  ’Of course, after the divorce.’

“‘Are you going to get a divorce then from her?’

“‘I’ve been thinking it over,’ I said carefully, and I had, ’and I think the best way would be for her to get it.  That can be done, can’t it?’ I said, ’because I’ve been thinking of the child, and I don’t want her to grow up with any stain on the good name of her mother,’ I said.

“‘Then you will give up the child?’ he said.

“And I said:  ‘Yes.’

“‘Will he marry her?’ he said again.

“‘For what else did he take her away?’

“‘If I was you,’ he said, looking at me hard, ’I’d make sure of that—­before.’

“That worried me a good deal, and I went out and walked around, and then I went to the station and bought a ticket for Chicago, and I said to myself:  ‘I’ll go and see him’; for by that time I’d made up my mind what I’d do.

“And when I got there the next morning, I went straight to his house, and my heart sank, for it was a great place with a high iron railing all around it and a footman at the door—­and I began to understand why Fanny Montrose had left me for him.

“I’d thought a long time about giving another name; but I said to myself:  ’No, I’ll him a chance first to come down and face me like a man,’ so I said to the footman:  ’Go tell Paul Bargee that Larry Moore has come to see him.’

“Then I went down the hall and into the great parlor, all hung with draperies, and I looked at myself in the mirrors and looked at the chairs, and I didn’t feel like sitting down, and presently the curtains opened, and Paul Bargee stepped into the room.  I looked at him once, and then I looked at the floor, and my breath came hard.  Then he stepped up to me and stopped and said: