He brushed off his nose again, and took another short turn from the table, his head dropped in thought.  “It is customary,” he said as he turned to me, “to give the wife the wedding certificate.  The law, the ministry, and the profession of medicine, all unite in their estimate of the relative value of marital faithfulness as between the sexes.  It is the woman who needs the proof.  All nature shields the woman’s sex.  She is the apple of Nature’s eye, and even the law knows that.”

I walked to the mantel and took up the knife that lay there.  I returned to the table, and with a long stroke I ripped the hide in two.  I threw the two pieces into the grate.

“That is my proof,” said I, “that Ellen Meriwether needs no marriage certificate!  I am the certificate for that, and for her!”

Colonel Sheraton staggered to me, his hand trembling, outstretched.  “You’re free to marry my poor girl—­” he began.

“It is proof also,” I went on, “that I shall never see Ellen Meriwether again, any more than I shall see Grace Sheraton again after I have married her.  What happens after that is not my business.  It is my business, Colonel Sheraton, and yours—­possibly even your son’s”—­I smiled at Harry—­“to find Gordon Orme.  I claim him first.  If I do not kill him, then you—­and you last, Harry, because you are least fit.”

“Gentlemen, is it all agreed?” I asked.  I tossed the knife back on the mantel, and turned my back to it and them.

“Jack,” said my old wire-hair, Doctor Bond, “I pray God I may never see this done again to any man.  I thank God the woman I loved died years ago.  She was too good—­they’re all too good—­I, a physician, say they are all too good.  Only in that gap between them and us lies any margin which permits you to lie to yourself at the altar.  To care for them—­to shield them—­they, the apple of the Eye—­that is why we men are here.”  He turned away, his face working.

“Is it agreed?” I asked of Colonel Sheraton, sternly.

His trembling hand sought mine.  “Yes,” he said.  “Our quarrel is discharged, and more than so.  Harry, shake hands with Mr. Cowles.  By God! men, our quarrel now runs to Gordon Orme.  To-morrow we start for Carolina, where we had his last address.  Mr. Cowles, my heart bleeds, it bleeds, sir, for you.  But for her also—­for her up there.  The courts shall free you quickly and quietly, as soon as it can be done.  It is you who have freed us all.  You have been tried hard.  You have proved yourself a man.”

But it was not the courts that freed us.  None of us ever sought actual knowledge of what agency really freed us.  Indeed, the time came swiftly for us all to draw the cloak of secrecy about one figure of this story, and to shield her in it forever.

Again we were interrupted.  The door at the stair burst open.  A black maid, breathless, broke into the room.

[Illustration:  WHEN THE WAY OF WOMEN PASSETH A MAN’S UNDERSTANDING]