Chapter XLV - Page 2

pretty one. But I've promised her I would tell you--"

"What did he divorce her for?"

"Desertion. There was worse behind."

"Do you mean to tell me there was another man? I'll break your neck."

"There was no other man. I'll give you a few drops of digitalis, although you must have the heart of an ox--"

"Give me a drink. I'm sick of your damn physic. Don't worry. I'm out of that, and I shan't go back."

Holt poured him out a small quantity of old Bourbon and diluted it with water. Masters regarded it with a look of scorn but tossed it off.

"What was the worse behind?"

"When she heard what had become of you--she got it out of me--she deliberately made a drunkard of herself. She became the scandal of the town. She was cast out, neck and crop. Every friend she ever had cut her, avoided her as if she were a leper. She left the doctor and lived by herself in one room on the Plaza. I met her again in one of the worst dives in San Francisco--"

"Stop!" Masters' voice rose to a scream. He tried to get out of bed but fell back on the pillows. "You are a liar--you--you--"

"You shall listen whether you relish the facts or not. I have given her my promise." And he told the story in all its abominable details, sparing the writhing man on the bed nothing. He drew upon his imagination for scenes between Madeleine and the doctor, of whose misery he gave a harrowing picture. He described the episode on the boat after her drinking bout at Blazes', of the futile attempts of Sally Abbott and Talbot to cure her. He gave graphic and hideous pictures of the dives she had frequented alone, the risks she had run in the most vicious resorts on Barbary Coast. Not until he had seared Masters' brain indelibly did he pass to Madeleine's gradual rise from her depths, the restoration of her beauty and charm and sanity. It was when she was almost herself again that Talbot had offered to forgive her and take her to Europe to live, offering divorce as the alternative.

"Of course she accepted the divorce," Holt concluded. "That meant freedom to go to you."

Masters had grown calm by degrees. "I should never have dreamed even Madeleine was capable of that," he said. "And there was a time when I believed there was no height to which she could not soar. She is a great woman and a great lover, and I am no more worthy of her now than I was in that sink where you found me. Nor ever shall be. Go out and bring in a barber."

Holt laughed. "At least you are yourself again and I fancy she'll ask no more than that. Shall I tell her you will see her in an hour?"

"Yes, I'll see her. God! What a woman."