With a fugitive sense of pursuit, we hired a cabby to drive us to a summer boarding house at Long Branch ... where Hildreth and I rented a single large room for both of us.... And there Hildreth immediately went into hysterics, and did nothing but weep. While I waited on her hand and foot, bringing up food to her because she was sensitive about the probability of people recognising her. We stayed there a week. Each day the papers were full of our mysterious disappearance ... reporters were combing the country to find us. Reports of our being in various places were sent in by enterprising local correspondents.... Again we entrained ... for Sea Girt. An old cabman who drove a dilapidated rig hailed us with uplifted whip. "We are looking for a place to board." "I'll take you to a nice, quiet place, just suited to two home-loving folks like you," he replied, thinking he had paid us a compliment, and whipping up his ancient nag. Hildreth gave me a nudge and a merry look and it pleased me to see she still had her sense of humour left. That night, as I held her in my arms, "Don't let these little, trivial inconveniences and incidents--the petty persecutions we are undergoing, have any effect on our great love," I pleaded. "That's all very well, darling Johnnie, but where are we going to?" "We'll find a cottage somewhere ... a pretty little cottage within our means," I replied, visioning a vine-trellised place such as poets and their brides must live in. "Our money is giving out ... soon we'll have--to turn back to New York!" "If we do, that need not part us.... I'll get a job on some newspaper or magazine and take care of you." * * * * * When I called for my mail at the Sea Girt post office, sure of hearing from Darrie, anyhow,--who promised us she would keep us posted, I found no letter. And the man at the window was certain he had handed over several letters addressed to me to someone else who had called for them, giving my name as his. A wave of hot anger suffused my face. How stupid of me not to have noticed it before. Now I remembered the men who had followed us. Our mail was being intercepted. How was Baxter to procure his divorce without gaining evidence in just such a way? * * * * * One night I started on a long walk alone. I walked along the beach. In the dark I took off my clothes and plunged for a swim into the chilly surf ... a high sea was thundering in. I was caught in the undertow, swept off my feet, and dragged beyond by depth ... for a moment I was of a heart to let go, to permit myself to be drowned ... I was even intrigued, for the moment, by the thought of what the newspapers would say about my passing over in such a romantic way. But the will to live rose up in me. And I fought my way,--and it was a bitter fight,--back to shallow water. I flung myself prone on the beach, exhausted. When I reached our room again, I related my adventure to Hildreth.