Watson rose also.  “You won’t regret this, I’m sure,” he ventured, heartily.  “Meanwhile I’ll get busy pulling wires at once.  It won’t do to let this thing get cold.  I’ll go right out and see Hilmer now...  Any message you’d like to give your wife?”

Fred looked at the man before him searchingly.  “No ... none!”

Watson bowed himself out...  Fred Starratt put both hands to his temples.

CHAPTER X

The days that followed passed in a blur.  Fred Starratt went through the motions of living, but they were only motions.  Between the intervals of legal adjustments, court examinations, and formal red tape he would lie upon his narrow bed at the hotel reading his wife’s message—­that sharp-edged message which had shorn him of his strength—­as if to dull further his blunted sensibilities.  In all this time he saw only Watson.  He did not ask for Hilmer or Helen.  But one day the attorney said to him: 

“Your wife is still ill, otherwise—­” “Yes, yes ... of course,” Fred assented, dismissing the subject with an impatient shrug.

Finally, on a certain afternoon at about two o’clock, Watson came in quite unexpectedly.

“I think by to-night everything will be settled. ...  What can I do for you? ...  Perhaps you would like to go to your apartment and get some things together...  Or see a friend...  Just say the word.”  Fred roused himself.  A fleeting rebellion flickered and died.  He wanted nothing ... least of all to so much as see his former dwelling place.  He made only one request.

“If you’re passing that dance hall where they arrested me—­you know, near Jackson Street—­drop in and ask for a girl called Ginger.  I’d like to see her.”

Watson smiled widely...

The girl Ginger came that very afternoon.  She was dressed very quietly in black, with only a faint trace of make-up on her cheeks.  Almost anyone would have mistaken her for a drab little shopgirl.  Fred felt awkward in her presence.

“I’m going away to-night—­for some time,” he said, when she had seated herself.  “And I wanted to thank you for your interest when—­”

She shook her head.  “That wasn’t anything,” she answered.

He wondered what next to say.  It was she who spoke finally.

“I suppose you got out of your mess all right,” she half queried.

He opened his cigarette case and offered her a smoke.  She declined.

“Well, not altogether...  My friend Hilmer worked a compromise...  I’m going to a place to sober up.”  He laughed bitterly.

She folded her hands.  “One of those private sanitariums, I suppose, where rich guys bluff it out until everything blows over.”

“No, you’re wrong again...  I’m going summering in a state hospital.”

Her hands, suddenly unclasped, lifted and fell in startled flight.  “An insane asylum?” she gasped.  He leaned forward.  “Why do you say that?”