"Bosh and tommyrot!" Buckton fairly glowed. "Never, never, when the case is like ours. We are simply doing our duty to ourselves. Love you? Why, I adore you! You have saved my life, darling. I would have killed myself. I've been on the very brink of it more than once. I've suffered agonies ever since you married. The birth of your child fairly drove me insane. I groveled in blackest despair. It made me feel that--that you were, or had been, actually his. Oh, it was awful! Don't regret our step. Think of what is before us. We'll stop in Charleston, see the quaint old town, go on to Savannah, stop a day or so, and then sail for New York. The ships are good, and at this season the sea is as smooth as glass. When we get to New York we will simply paint the town red, and if you wish, then, we'll go on to Europe. What could be more glorious? Why, the whole world is ours." She smiled, almost sadly, and then, as if to avoid his gaze, she glanced out of the window. He saw her breast heave. He heard her sigh. "You are a man and I am a woman," she muttered. "I suppose that makes a difference. In a case like ours a man never is blamed by society, but the woman is. They class her with the lowest. Oh, won't they talk at home? Nothing else will be thought of for months. Old-fashioned persons will say it was the life we led. Do you suppose it could possibly--in any way--injure Dick's business?" "How could it?" Buckton said, with caustic impatience. "What has this to do with his affairs?" "Oh, I don't know!" She exhaled the words, heavily. "I have heard my father say that depositors sometimes take fright at the slightest things concerning the private lives of bankers. Andy, I would not like for this to--cost Dick a cent. I couldn't bear that." "Do you think you ought to entertain such fine-spun ideas in regard to him when--when he is living as he is?" "That has bothered me, too," she said, quickly. "Somehow I can't believe that he ever really went back to that woman--that is, to live with her. I met her only a week ago on the street. She looked straight at me, and, somehow, I was sure that he and she were not as they used to be. Call it intuition if you like, but intuition is sometimes reliable. It may have been by accident that they were together when you saw them out there. He takes lonely walks in all sorts of directions. He is a strange combination. His love for little Dick, his constant worrying about him is remarkable. It used to make me mad, but in a way I respected him for it." "Let's not talk about him," Buckton implored. "All this rubbish is giving you the blues. They have called dinner. Let's go back to the dining-car. The service is fairly good on this line." "I couldn't eat a bite," Irene answered. "Well, let us go in, anyway. It will be a change," he said, "and will take your mind off this gloomy subject. Think of what is ahead of us, darling, not behind."