"That is my card, Ruth Mont!" White exclaimed harshly. "It is the card of the man whom you should call 'husband'--who _is_ your husband by right. _And I am that man!_" A porter suddenly entered the door at John Ryder's back. "Are you Mr. Ryder, sir?" he said. "I was sent after you. Your trunks have been brought across the inlet and we have them at the door of your suite. Shall we take them inside and carry the empty boxes downstairs, sir?" How did he do it? How does a man's brain sometimes continue to work and his limbs to move when he is sleep-walking? The subconscious self of John Ryder moved out of the parlor where two human beings were in the throes of a gripping tragedy--a tragedy that might scar his whole future life--and led the porter back to Suite Three. He opened the door with the key he had obtained at the desk and saw the porters bring in the trunks. He made them understand that they were to let the empty boxes belonging to Ruth remain. Then he tipped them and was left alone. He sat down in the very chair he had sat in before and held Ruth in his arms, and awaited his wife's return. His wife! God in heaven! Was she his wife? White had claimed her as rightfully belonging to him, and all those suspicious circumstances that had heretofore rankled in John Ryder's mind swam to the surface and offered proof that White's statement was true. What was this awful riddle that seared John Ryder's soul as though with a branding iron? He was convinced now that White was not a madman. Wild he might appear; but that he was insane, that his strange speeches were the vaporings of an unbalanced mind, Ryder did not now believe. Why was he so sure that White was sane? Because Ruth had shown by her manner and by the expression of her countenance that something in White's statement impressed her. Ryder had seen her display this fear twice. He was convinced that White actually was closely associated with her, or had been so in the past. Yet Ruth was bound to him--Ryder. She was his wife. He had been wedded to her less than twenty-four hours before. Twenty-four hours! It seemed a lifetime of storm and stress. Ryder had promised to love, to cherish, to support and defend from all harm, to---- "My God!" he exclaimed, leaping up. "Am I a pusillanimous coward--a dastard? I have left her to face that man--whatever or whoever he is--alone." He started for the door, madly intending to go back to the parlor and face them both. The door of the suite opened and closed swiftly. Ruth came in--the vision of a panting, wild-eyed, pallid-faced woman. She clung to the door knob for a moment, striving to regain her breath, and staring strangely into John Ryder's face. When she spoke, what she said shocked him as nothing else could have done. "Who are you?" she demanded. "What--what manner of man are you? What did you do this to me for? _Why did you do it?_" "Do what?" asked Ryder.