“Sure it would!” he said easily.

“But now—­now—–­” she pursued fearfully.

“Now she’s turned up,” he said, a shadow falling on his heavy face again.  “She was at the theatre last night.  God knows what she’s been doing all these years; she looks awful.  She saw my picture in some paper, and she came straight to the city.  She found out where I lived, and this morning, while you were at church, Mabel came in and said a lady wanted to see me.  I took her to breakfast.  I didn’t know what to do with her—­and we talked.”

“And what does she say, Wallie—­what does she want?”

“Oh, she wants anything she can get!  She doesn’t know that I’m married.  If she did, I suppose she might make herself unpleasant along that line!”

“But she has no claim on you!  She married another man!”

“She says now that she never was married to Prendergast!”

“But she was!” Martie said hotly.  Her voice dropped vaguely.  Her eyes were fixed and glassy with growing apprehension.  “Perhaps she was lying about that,” she whispered, as if to herself.

“She’d lie about anything!” Wallace supplied.

“But if she wasn’t, Wallace, if she wasn’t—­then would that second marriage cancel the first?” she asked feverishly.

“I should think so!” he answered.  “Shouldn’t you?”

“Shouldn’t I?” she echoed, with her first flash of anger.  “Why, what do I know about it?  What do I know about it?  I don’t know anything!  You come to me with this now—­now!”

“Don’t talk like that!” he pleaded.  “I feel—­I feel awfully about it, Martie!  I can’t tell you how I feel!  But the whole thing was so long ago it had sort of gone out of my mind.  Every fellow does things that he’s ashamed of, Mart—­things that he’s sorry for; but you always think that you’ll marry some day, and have kids, and that the world will go on like it always has—–­”

The fire suddenly died out of Martie.  In a deadly calm she sat back against her pillows, and began to gather up her masses of loosened hair.

“If she is right—–­” she began, and stopped.

“She’s not right, I tell you!” Wallace said.  “She hasn’t got a leg to stand on!”

“No,” Martie conceded lifelessly, patiently.  “But if she should be right—–­”

“But I tell you she isn’t, Mart!”

“Yes, I know you do.”  The deadly gentleness was again in her voice.  “I know you do!” she repeated mildly.  “Only—­only—–­” Her lip trembled despite her desperate effort, she felt her throat thicken and the tears come.

Instantly he was beside her again, and with her arms still raised she felt him put his own arms about her, and felt his penitent kisses through the veil of her hair.  A sickness swept over her:  they were here in the sacred intimacy of their own room, the room to which he had brought her as a bride only a few months before.