* * * * *
In the morning mail came a letter, general delivery, from Penton.... Now
I was sure he was having our every step watched. A blind passion against
him rose in me ... the little bounder!
In the letter he asked me to meet him at the Sea Girt railway station at
four o'clock. I made it by the time indicated, by a brisk walk.
There he was, dropping off the train as it came to a stop. Another scene
flashed through my mind, a visual remembrance of the day he had dropped
off to visit me at Laurel.
Then we had rushed toward each other, hands extended in warm,
affectionate greeting ... now ... I slowly sauntered up to him.
"Yes, Penton, what do you want; how much longer are you going to torture
your wife?"
"--yours now, Johnnie; mine no longer!" grimly.
"If she were wholly mine, I'd knock you flat ... but you still have a
sort of right in her that protects you from what I otherwise might do to
you."
"For heaven's sake, let's be calm."
"Calm--when you say in your letter, 'you need not be afraid, I meditate
no harm?'--do you mean to imply that, under any circumstance, I would be
afraid of you?"
"Johnnie, there is only one way to settle this ... I'm set on getting
the complete evidence for a divorce ... exactly where is Hildreth now?"
"None of your damned business ... all I can say is that she is somewhere
near here .
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