The Substitute Prisoner | Page 7

conversation. Lifting
the note out of the envelope, he read:
"My Dear Grace:
"Since I communicated with you last, additional reasons have
developed to justify your leaving him immediately. Your belief that
with all his faults he has adhered to his marriage vows is but a delusion
born of your own pure nature. I have the proof, if you care to hear it.
Grace, you told me you loved me. My love for you is undiminished.
Why sacrifice yourself longer--why sacrifice me? I cannot endure to be
parted from you. Start for Reno at once--to-morrow is not too soon.
Our love is too holy to be smitten and made to suffer by one entirely
unworthy of your slightest consideration. Leave him, Grace, and come
to me.
"Yours devotedly, HERBERT."

"Well, what do you think of that?" Collins asked, turning toward his
brother-in-law. "My wife loves another man. And he's urging her to
wreck her home!"
Ward's eyes alternated between his sister and her husband.
"Of course, she's not going to do it," he said as if expressing an
inevitable conclusion.
"I'm going to leave here this very day," she declared firmly.
"And plunge into the scandal of a divorce proceeding?" Her brother
bestowed a reproachful glance upon her. "Grace, you know how I feel
toward your husband. Long ago I urged you to divorce him, but you
refused. Now you must consider me. Think of the notoriety! My
approaching marriage must not be overcast by the awful scandal that
will follow your trip to Reno. Were we less prominent socially, it might
be different. But the newspapers will be full of it. No, Grace, don't do
anything hasty--not just now."
"You counsel me to continue living with him?" she inquired.
"I simply ask you to continue as you're doing."
She bent forward in her chair, her face set in an expression of
unalterable determination.
"I love Herbert," she declared calmly, unmindful of the amazement
which her avowal produced. "I have loved him a long while," she
continued undismayed. "I crave him--I loathe the man to whom I am
wedded."
"I sympathize with you," the brother hastened to assure her, "and, were
it not for my marriage, I should urge you to leave him at once. He's a
cad--"
"I'm not the sort of cad that permits another man to destroy his home,"
blurted Collins.

The others ignored his interruption.
"Lester," said the wife, "I shall leave this house to-day. Regardless of
your marriage, I shall apply for a divorce and marry Herbert
Whitmore."
The strained silence which followed was broken by Collins. He arose
and walked to the door.
"You'll never marry Whitmore," he said. "There is a higher law that
protects the home."
"Why--what do you mean?" the wife inquired in a tone of alarm.
Something in her husband's face, something she had never seen there
before, frightened her.
"I'm going to kill Whitmore," he said, leaving the room.
CHAPTER III
A premeditated killing wherein the murderer makes no provision to
protect himself from the sure consequences of his act, requires a certain
amount of perverted courage. Neither Mrs. Collins nor her brother
credited Collins with the possession of even this low courage--at least
not in sufficient degree to induce him to relinquish the comforts of
freedom for the inconveniences of a prison. So they offered no
objection to his departure, permitting him to leave without a word, as
though they were entirely unconcerned in what he did.
Knowing Collins intimately as they did, it was impossible to take his
assumption of the rôle of an outraged husband seriously. They saw,
only too clearly, the ridiculous figure he made in the false light with
which he had invested himself. But when he was gone, with his threat
still echoing through their brains, they began to doubt their first
impression of his cowardice.
"That's a fine mess you've made of it," said Ward, who had grown
palpably uneasy.

"I made the mess when I married him," replied the sister. "I shall now
proceed to disentangle myself from it. Until I start for Reno I shall live
at your house."
"You don't think, really, that he would shoot?" The brother's face
expressed incredulity, mixed with worry.
Her forehead contracted in thought.
"As he is now, I feel certain he would not dare. But should he start
drinking--"
Ward was on his feet, his pale face grown paler.
"That's just it!" he exclaimed. "We must forestall him."
The same thought had flashed through her brain and she was already on
the way to the telephone. She called up Whitmore's house and asked for
the merchant.
"He didn't come home last night," the butler informed her.
Although burning with anxiety she made no further inquiries of the
servant. Instead, she rang up Whitmore's office.
"No ma'am,