"Or perhaps you're not!" Mrs. Boller mused, "You think her a very worthy young woman?" Robert looked blankly at her. "But she is not," Beatrice said softly. "And you look like a decent sort, and however much it may hurt for a little, you shall have the truth. You asked me where I found this hat. Well, it was in the bedroom at the end of that corridor--Mr. Boller's room!" She waited vainly for a little, because Robert simply did not comprehend. He frowned at Beatrice and then shook his head. "What--what do you say?" "It had been there all night, Mr. Vining," Beatrice purred on. "So had she!" "Mary--_my Mary_? Mary Dalton?" Robert gasped. "Mary Dalton!" "But that--that's all damned--pardon me!--nonsense! That----" He turned on Anthony; and then, quickly as he had turned, he gasped and stared with burning eyes. View him as one chose, there was nothing about Anthony to indicate that it was nonsense. He was biting his lips; his eyes were upon the floor; had he rehearsed the thing for months he could not possibly have looked more guilty. "Why--why----" choked Robert Vining. Beatrice laid a slender hand on his arm. "Come with me," she said quickly. "Come and see her bag and her little toilet case and several other of her things. Perhaps you'll recognize them, too, and they'll convince you that she really settled down here for a visit. Come!" As a man in a dreadful dream, Robert Vining followed her blindly into the corridor and out of sight. Johnson Boller smiled a demon smile and thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets. "Here's where _he_ gets _his_!" he stated. Anthony could no more than speak. "That--that woman!" he contrived. "What an absolutely merciless thing----" "Huh? Bee?" the remarkable Boller said sharply. "She's all right; she's acting according to her own lights, isn't she? Why the devil shouldn't Vining suffer, too? D'ye think I'm the only man in the world that has to suffer?" "I think you're in luck if she divorces you!" Anthony stated feelingly. "A woman capable of that is capable of anything!" Johnson Boller stayed the angry words upon his lips and smiled grimly. More, after a moment he thrust out his hand. "I guess it doesn't matter much what you think now, Anthony," said he. "Good-by!" "What?" "Good-by, old man! You're going to leave this world in about three minutes, you know--just as soon as he's convinced and able to act again, Anthony. So long I'll be sorry to think of you as missing--sometimes, I suppose, but not when I think what you've put over on me." Anthony laughed viciously. "Don't use up all your sympathy," he said. "You may need a little for yourself, Johnson. The things are in what's supposed to be _your_ room, you know." "What?" gasped Johnson Boller. "That's true! That----" Out at the entrance, a key was scraping in the latch; and when it had scraped for the second time Anthony smiled forlornly.