Hickson was really shocked.  “How can you think such a thing, Riatt?”

“Where did you see Linburne?”

Hickson hesitated, but confessed after some protest that it had been at Christine’s house.

“But you don’t understand, you really don’t,” he said.  “She has been distracted by your reverses, and not hearing from you she has turned to me, to Jack Ussher, to any one who could give her news and help you, as she imagined—­”

“I understand quite enough,” answered Riatt.  “Thank Mr. Linburne for his kind offer and say I have other plans; and tell Christine she can have her absolution for nothing.  I’ll give her a letter that will put her right with every one.”  And walking to a desk: 

“My dear Christine,” he wrote.  “As you are aware, I have lost everything I have in the world, and though I know that to a spirit like your own poverty could not alter love, I must own that I, more experienced in privation, find that the situation has had a somewhat chilling effect upon my emotions.  In short, my dear, I cannot begin life over again hampered by a wife.  Thanking you for the loyalty with which you have stood by me in this crisis, and wishing you every happiness in the future, believe me

“Sincerely yours,

“R.M.  RIATT.”

He handed the note to Hickson.  “I think that, taken externally, will effect a cure,” he said.  “Good night, Hickson.  I’m dead tired, so you won’t mind my going to bed.  Oh, and I’m off to-morrow, so I shan’t see you again.  Good-by.”

“Are you going home?” Hickson asked.  But Max maintained a certain vagueness as to his plans, which Hickson, having accomplished his purpose, did not notice.  He was very much pleased with the results of his diplomacy.  No one could say a word against Christine now.  It wasn’t her fault if the engagement was broken.  Riatt was a noble fellow—­only, the noblest sometimes forgot these simple, practical details.

The next day Riatt paid his bill at the hotel and went away without leaving an address.

Few of us have driven past rows of suburban cottages, or through streets lined by city flats, without considering how easy it would be to sink one’s identity and become part of a new unknown life.  Riatt certainly had often thought of such a possibility and now he put his plans into operation.  He took no great precautions against discovery, for he had no notion that any one would be particularly interested in knowing his whereabouts.  But he allowed those at home to suppose he was working in New York, as he suggested to those in New York that he had very naturally gone home.

As a matter of fact, he had taken a position with a new company which was constructing aeroplanes for the market, into which in past times he had put a little money.  He hired a small flat in Brooklyn, on the top floor, so that he had a glimpse of the harbor from his sitting-room windows.  He spent the last of his ready money in buying out the dilapidated furniture of his predecessor; and then with the assistance of the janitor’s wife, who gave him his breakfast and did what she called “redding up the place,” he began to live on the slim salary that his new job gave him.