"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. She freed herself with what dignity she could command. He asked her a hundred times if she loved him, if she could forgive him. Her one impulse was to silence him, to have him go away. "I know--I know how you feel, Wallie! I'm sorry--for you and myself, and the whole thing! I'm terribly sorry! I--I don't know what we can do. I have to go away, of course; I can't stay here until we know; and you'll have to investigate, and find out just what she claims. I'll go to Sally, I suppose. People can think I've come up to help when the baby comes--I don't care what they think!" "I thought you might go to Oakland for awhile," he agreed, gratefully; "but of course it'll be best to have you go to Sally--it'll only be for a few days. Mart, I feel rotten about it!" "I know you do, Wallace," she answered nervously.