She decided to disregard the lawyer’s caution to the extent of a telephone call to John’s office. But he was not in and she dared not leave name or number. To put anything in writing was dangerous. Holt had warned her, yet a note was the only recourse left--one brief, careful note. Stationery and a pen she secured from the matron; forced herself to write briefly and constrainedly; addressed it to Mr. Cabot’s banking-house. Lest she permit apprehension to change her mind, she placed her finished missive at once on the table in the hall, where it would be given to the postman on his next round. She was returning to her room--very slowly now--when the ensuing dialogue, first in a woman’s voice, then in a man’s, came to her ears from behind a door marked “PRIVATE” that gave into the hall. “With a sham like you, there’s nothing to life. Why didn’t I see in time that my husband was the one who should have lived--you the one to die?” “How like a woman, to shift the blame! Wasn’t the whole scheme your own--the cat-boat, the surprise attack, that weird knowledge of----” “Hush, for Heaven’s sake!” “See, you’re the guilty one. You tremble at the truth. I never had heard of a death-spot in the human ear. I couldn’t have struck true. And I couldn’t have play-acted your grief over the accident. Certainly you ought to grant, Mary, that I was all right then. Expected we’d be married like other folks, once we’d got the business well started on the capital from his life insurance. You say you have no respect for me. Well, there’s more than one cause for a loss of respect. What about mine for you? How can I know when some new lover will tempt you to drive a nail through the lobe of _my_ ear--to throw _me_ into a tide rip? It isn’t a man’s nature, I tell you----” “Don’t call yourself a man. You have cheated me unforgivably. And yet----” “‘And yet.’ Thank God we’ve reached argument’s end for to-day! We both know what we know and that I can prove it. More than you hate me you fear me. Come, we might as well be friends.” “_Friends?_ Remember that I can prove it, too, on you.” “But you won’t, dear heart. Aren’t you tired yet of threatening me? Eventually you’ll settle to living it out peaceably on my terms. Why not now? Come. Be a sensible soul and agree----” One of the voices alone might have puzzled Dolores, but together she had recognized both. They had struck her like a blow. As if physically stunned, she had clung to the balustrade for aid in undertaking the first few steps of the stairway. By now, more strength came to her. Quietly and rapidly as she could, she toiled beyond ear-shot up the flight. Out of breath she collapsed on her narrow iron bed; lay realizing, not only the significance to herself of what she had overheard, but its meaning to the two principals as well.