"If he believes in freedom for men and women, why was all this necessary? the sordidness of the public clamour? the divorce court?... oh, my poor, dear, sweet, wild poet-boy, you're in for it! Don't you wish you were well out of all this and back in Kansas again?" "No; I am glad. As long as I am with you I don't care what happens. I love you, Hildreth!" * * * * * In the night she woke, screaming, from a nightmare. I could hardly stop her. "Hush, dearest ... darling ... sweetheart ... I am with you; everything is all right" ... then, as she kept it up, "for God's sake ... Hildreth, do be quiet ... you're all right ... the man you love is here, close by you ... no harm shall come to you." "Oh, Johnnie," clutching me, quivering, "I've just had such a horrible dream," sobbing as I took her tenderly in my arms.... "There, there, darling!" She was quiet now. "In a few minutes we would have had the whole hotel breaking in at the door ... thinking I was killing you." * * * * * She woke up again, and woke me up. "Johnnie, find me some ink and a pen. I'm going to write that cad a letter that will shrivel him up like acid." "Can't you wait till morning, Hildreth?" sleepily. "No ... I _must_ write it now." I dressed. I went down to the hotel writing-room and came back with pen and ink. She sat up in bed and wrote the letter. She then read it aloud to me. She was immensely pleased with her effort. With a final gesticulation of vindictive, feminine joy, she succeeded in spilling the whole bottle of ink on the white bed-spread. "Now you've done it." "We'll have to clear out early before the chambermaid comes in ... we're only staying here for one night and can't waste our money paying for the damage." In the morning I bought the papers. The _American_ had made a scoop. There it was, the story of the whole thing on the front page. "PENTON BAXTER SUES FOR DIVORCE -------------------------- NAMES VAGABOND-POET AS CO-RESPONDENT" There it stood, in big head-lines. The actuality stared us in the face. We belonged to each other now. It was no longer a summer idyll, but a practical reality. As we took the train for Long Branch we realised that we had plunged midmost into the action that would put all our theories to the test.... I looked at my woman with a sidelong glance, as she sat beside me on the train seat.... She was so pretty, so frail, so feminine that I pitied her, while at the same time my heart swelled with tenderness for her, and with pride of possession. For she was mine now without dispute. She, for her part, spoke but little, except illogically to upbraid Penton Baxter, as if he had perpetrated an ill on two people thoroughly innocent. I was angry with him on other grounds ... he was not playing the radical game, but taking advantage of the rules of the conventional world.