To Warren Gregory, as he walked down the street after leaving her at the theatre, it was indeed like a dream, a frightful dream.  He could hardly credit his senses, hardly believe that all these horrible things were true, that Rachael knew all about Magsie, and that Magsie was quietly thinking of divorce and marriage!  Rachael, in such a rage, rushing away with the boys—­why, he had made no secret of his admiration for Magsie from Rachael, he had often talked to her enthusiastically of Magsie!  And here she was furiously offering him his freedom.

Well, what had he done after all?  What a preposterous fuss about nothing.  His thoughts were checked and chilled by the memory of letters that Magsie had.  Magsie could prove nothing by those letters—­

But what a fool they would make him!  Warren Gregory remembered the case of a dignified college professor whose private correspondence had recently been given to the press, and he felt a cool shudder run down his spine.  Rachael, reading those letters!  It was unthinkable!  She and the world would think him a fool!  It came to him suddenly that she and the world would be right.  He was a fool, and it was a fool’s paradise in which he had been wandering:  to take his wife and home and sons for granted, and to spend all his leisure at the feet of a calculating little girl like Magsie!

“What did you expect her to do?” Magsie had asked.  What would any sane man expect her to do?  Smile with him at the new favorite’s charms, and take up her life in loneliness and neglect?

And now, Rachael was gone, and he stood promised to Magsie.  So much was clear.  Rachael would fight for her divorce.  Magsie would fight for her husband.

“Oh, my God, how did we ever get into this sickening, sickening mess?” Warren said out loud in his misery.

He had not dined, he did not think of dinner as he paced the windy, cool city streets hour after hour.  Nine struck, and he hailed a cab, and went to the hospital, moving through his work like a man in a dream.  The woman whose life he chanced to save throughout all her days would say she had had a lovely doctor.  Warren hardly saw her.  He thought only of Magsie, Magsie who had in her possession a number of compromising letters, every one sillier than the last—­Magsie, who expected him to divorce his wife and marry her.  He was in such a state of terror that he could not think.  Every instant brought more disquiet to his thoughts; he felt as if, when he stepped out into the street again, the newsboys might be calling his divorce, as if honor and safety and happiness were gone forever.

He did not see Magsie again that night, but walked and walked, entering his house sick and haggard, and sleeping the hours restlessly away.

At nine o’clock the next morning he went to the telephone, and called the Valentine house.  Doctor Valentine was not at home, he was informed.  Was Mrs. Valentine there?  Would she speak to Doctor Gregory?