Our mail was being intercepted.  How was Baxter to procure his divorce without gaining evidence in just such a way?

* * * * *

One night I started on a long walk alone.  I walked along the beach.  In the dark I took off my clothes and plunged for a swim into the chilly surf ... a high sea was thundering in.  I was caught in the undertow, swept off my feet, and dragged beyond by depth ... for a moment I was of a heart to let go, to permit myself to be drowned ...  I was even intrigued, for the moment, by the thought of what the newspapers would say about my passing over in such a romantic way.

But the will to live rose up in me.  And I fought my way,—­and it was a bitter fight,—­back to shallow water.  I flung myself prone on the beach, exhausted.

When I reached our room again, I related my adventure to Hildreth.

It was she who took care of me now.  I lay all night in a high fever ... but I was so happy, for the woman of my heart sat close by me, holding my hand, speaking soft terms of endearment to me, tending to all my wants.

This tenderness, this solicitude and companionship seemed for the first time better to me than the maddest transports of passion that swept us into one.

* * * * *

In the morning mail came a letter, general delivery, from Penton....  Now I was sure he was having our every step watched.  A blind passion against him rose in me ... the little bounder!

In the letter he asked me to meet him at the Sea Girt railway station at four o’clock.  I made it by the time indicated, by a brisk walk.

There he was, dropping off the train as it came to a stop.  Another scene flashed through my mind, a visual remembrance of the day he had dropped off to visit me at Laurel.

Then we had rushed toward each other, hands extended in warm, affectionate greeting ... now ...  I slowly sauntered up to him.

“Yes, Penton, what do you want; how much longer are you going to torture your wife?”

“—­yours now, Johnnie; mine no longer!” grimly.

“If she were wholly mine, I’d knock you flat ... but you still have a sort of right in her that protects you from what I otherwise might do to you.”

“For heaven’s sake, let’s be calm.”

“Calm—­when you say in your letter, ’you need not be afraid, I meditate no harm?’—­do you mean to imply that, under any circumstance, I would be afraid of you?”

“Johnnie, there is only one way to settle this ...  I’m set on getting the complete evidence for a divorce ... exactly where is Hildreth now?”

“None of your damned business ... all I can say is that she is somewhere near here ... and she’s sick and hysterical through your persecutions ... and if you don’t call off your snooping detectives, by the Lord God, if I run into any of them, I’ll try to kill them.”

“Johnnie, it’s the best thing to deliver the legal evidence and have it over with.  Let me accompany you to where Hildreth is, and—­”