“Hello, honey!” she cried. “What's wrong? You've got a fever, I'm sure. I'm going to take your temperature.” From her hospital experience she carried a little thermometer in her hand-bag. She had it by her and rose to put it under his tongue. He struck it from her, and she stared at him. He stood quivering like an overdriven horse. He called her a name highly proper in a kennel club, but inappropriate to the boudoir. “You thought you'd get away with it, didn't you? You thought you'd get away with it, didn't you?” he panted. “Get away with what, honey?” she said, thinking him delirious. She had seen a hundred men shrieking in wild frenzies from brains too hot. “You and Dyckman! humph!” he raged. “So you and Jim Dyckman sneaked off to the mountains together, did you? And came back on the same train, eh? And thought I'd never find it out. Why, you--” What he would have said she did not wait to hear. She was human, after all, and had thousands of plebeian and primitive ancestors and ancestresses. They jumped into her muscles with instant instinct. She slapped his face so hard that it rocked out of her view. She stood and fumbled at her tingling palm, aghast at herself and at the lightning-stroke from unknown distances that shattered her whole being. Then she began to sob. Peter Cheever's aching jaw dropped, and he gazed at her befuddled. His illogical belief in her guilt was illogically converted to a profound conviction of her innocence. The wanton whom he had accused was metamorphosed into a slandered angel who would not, could not sin. In his eyes she was hopelessly pure. “Thank God!” he moaned. “Oh, thank God for one clean woman in this dirty world!” He caught her bruised hand and began to kiss it and pour tears on it. And she looked down at his beautiful bent head and laid her other hand on it in benison. It is one way of reconciling families. Cheever was so filled with remorse that he was tempted to write Jim Dyckman a note of apology. That was one of the few temptations he ever resisted. Now he was going to kill everybody who had been dastard enough to believe and spread the scandal he had so easily believed himself. But he would have had to begin with Zada. He was afraid of Zada. He enjoyed a few days of honeymoon with Charity. He dodged Zada on the telephone, and he gave Mr. Hudspeth instructions to say that he was always out in case of a call from “Miss You Know.” “I know,” Mr. Hudspeth answered. One morning, at an incredibly early hour for Zada, she walked into his office and asked Mr. Hudspeth to retire--also the suspiciously good-looking stenographer. Then Zada said: “Peterkin, it's time you came home.” His laugh was hard and sharp. She took out a little weapon. She had managed to evade the Sullivan law against the purchase or possession of weapons. Peter was nauseated. Zada was calm. “Peterkin,” she said, “did you read yesterday about that woman who shot a man and then herself?”