I knew he was getting himself braced in those early hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since." Paula began to breathe a bit more freely. "Didn't he write?" "Yes, at first, but I saw at once he was forcing. Then he dictated an answer to one of mine--dictated a letter to me----" Selma Cross halted. The lids narrowed across her yellow eyes. "He had said he loved you?" Paula asked with effort. "By the way," Selma Cross retorted, "did you notice that word 'love' in either of his recent books--except as a generality?" "Since you speak of it, I do recall he markedly avoided it," Paula said with consuming interest. "No, he didn't use it to me. He said he never put it in a man's or woman's mouth in a story. Ah, but there are other words," she went on softly. "The man was a lover--beyond dreams--impassioned." "About that dictated letter?" Paula urged hastily. "Yes, I told him I didn't want any more that way. Then Villiers was back, and beckoning again. The last word I received was from Charter's stenographer. She said he was ill. Oh, I did hear afterward--that he was in a sanatorium. God knows, he must have landed there--if he kept up the pace he was going when I knew him." In the moment of silence which followed, Paula was hoping with all her might--that this was the end. "Oh, I know what you're thinking!" Selma said suddenly. "He has fascinated you, and you can't see that he's a rotten cad--from what I've said so far. A woman can never see the meanness of a man from another woman's experience with him. She forgives him for calling forth all another woman has--and then shaking her loose like a soiled bath-robe when one's tub is ready. But it's different when she's the discarded woman!... He was so deep, I can't believe he didn't know that episodes were new to me. Likely, he's had so many around the world, that he can't take them more seriously from the woman's angle--than from his own.... Quentin Charter was the first man to arouse all my dreams. Can't you see how it hurt when he turned out to be--well, that name you refuse to utter?" "Yes, of course, yes, but you suggest more, Selma!"