"Cradlebaugh! I wish you had never seen that man--that class of men!
Your money--my money very likely has been going to them! Well, if you
want money you will have to...." The tension snapped and she drew her
hand across her eyes, then broke down completely.
"A sign of weakening," Challoner said to himself, and promptly started
toward her.
"No, no,--go!" she cried, drawing her hands up to her face as if to shut
out the sight of him from her gaze.
A moment later Challoner was seated in the motorcar. As the chauffeur
threw in the clutch some instinct told Challoner to look back. He had a
fleeting impression that he had seen a woman's face in the doorway.
"Surely that's Miriam," he thought, and lifted his hat; but when he
looked again there was no one there. Yet if his senses had been
perfectly normal, he would have known that it was her face that he had
seen. But the fates had no intention of letting him know that with his
departure his wife's resolution had gone, and that she had come to the
door to beseech him to come back; for even then they were cunningly
spinning the web which was to encompass him about.