"A big rug, too, and curtains, and--a lot of things?" "How did you know, you? Tell me that." "Would you say it was worth four hundred dollars in all, what you saw?" The eyes were smiling again. "Perhaps. I don't know. I have never bought such things.... You haven't answered my question yet." "I know because Mr. Randall told me. He also requested me, as a favor, to ask you about them instead of going to the house myself." "Which means you made him a loan to pay the bill. Are you a friend of Harry's?" "A loan, yes. A friend--only as your friends are mine." "It's too bad, a burning shame--when Harry works so hard, too." The girl winked fast, against her will. "I can't quite forgive Margery." "For going to Chicago?" "For everything. For that too." "Not if I told you I advised her to go?" "You!" In astonishment complete the girl stared. "You advised her to go?" "Yes, the same day I made Randall the loan. It was really a coincidence. I wondered they didn't meet in the elevator." "A lawyer in a little town like this, with several departments in his business, comes in contact with a variety of things," he commented after a moment. "Tell me about Margery." The girl seemed to have heard that suggestion only. "I can't understand, can't believe--really." For a moment Roberts was silent. There was no banter in his manner when he looked up at last. "I didn't tell you this merely to gossip," he said slowly; "I think you appreciate that without my saying it; but somehow I felt that you ought to know--that if any one could do any good there it is you. I never met either of them before, that's another coincidence; but from what you've told me and the little I saw of them both that day, I felt dead sorry. Besides, life's so short, and I hate--divorce." "You can't mean it has come to that?" "It hadn't come, but it was coming fast. She visited me first. From there she was going straight to her father--to stay." "It's horrible, simply horrible--and so unjustified! You induced her, though, to go to Chicago instead?" "It was a compromise, a play for time. I tried to get her to go back home, but she refused, positively. The only alternative seemed to be to get her away--quick.... Was I right?" "Yes, I think so, under the circumstances. But the trouble itself, I can't understand yet--Was it that abominable furniture?" "Partly. At least that was the final straw, the match to the fuse. The whole thing had been gathering slowly for a long time. I didn't get the entire story, of course. She wasn't exactly coherent. It seems she ordered it on her own responsibility, and when the goods were delivered--the thing was merely inevitable, some time--that was all." "Inevitable? No. It was abominable of Margery--unforgivable." "I don't know about that; in fact I'm inclined to differ. I still maintain it was inevitable." "Inevitable fiddlesticks! Harry is the best-natured man alive, and generous. He's been too generous, too easy; that's the trouble."