CHAPTER II
THE EMBEZZLERS
"I came here to hide, to vanish forever from those who know me."
The young man paused a moment to watch the effect of his revelation ofhimself to Constance Dunlap. There was a certain cynical bitterness inhis tone which made her shudder.
"If you were to be discovered--what then?" she hazarded.
Murray Dodge looked at her significantly, but said nothing. Instead, heturned and gazed silently at the ruffled waters of Woodlake. There wasno mistaking the utter hopelessness and grim determination of the man.
"Why--why have you told so much to me, an absolute stranger?" sheasked, searching his face. "Might I not hand you over to the detectiveswho, you say, will soon be looking for you?"
"You might," he answered quickly, "but you won't."
There was a note of appeal in his voice as he pursued slowly, not as ifseeking protection, but as if hungry for friendship and most of all herfriendship, "Mrs. Dunlap, I have heard what the people at the hotel sayis your story. I think I understand, as much as a man can. Anyhow, Iknow that you can understand. I have reached a point where I must tellsome one or go insane. It is only a question of time before I shall becaught. We are all caught. Tell me," he asked eagerly, bending downcloser to her with an almost breathless intensity in his face as thoughhe would read her thoughts, "am I right? The story of you which I haveheard since I came here is not the truth, the whole truth. It is onlyhalf the truth--is it not?"
Constance felt that this man was dangerously near understanding her, asno one yet had seemed to be. It set her heart beating wildly to knowthat he did. And yet she was not afraid. Somehow, although she did notbetray the answer by a word or a look, she felt that she could trusthim.
Through the door of escape from the penalty of her forgeries, whichCarlton Dunlap had thrown open for her by the manner of his death,Constance had passed unsuspected. To return to New York, however, hadbecome out of the question. She had plenty of money for her presentneeds, although she thought it best to say nothing about it lest someone might wonder and stumble on the truth.
She had closed up the little studio apartment, and had gone to a quietresort in the pines. Here, at least, she thought she might liveunobserved until she could plan out the tangled future of her life.
There had seemed to be no need to conceal her identity, and she hadfelt it better not to do so. She knew that her story would follow her,and it had. She was prepared for that. She was prepared for the pityand condescension of the gossips and had made up her mind to standaloof.
Then came a day when a stranger had registered at the hotel. She hadnot noticed him especially, but it was not long before she realizedthat he was noticing her. Was he a detective? Had he found out thetruth in some uncanny way? She felt sure that the name on the hotelregister, Malcolm Dodd, was not his real name.
Constance had not been surprised when the head waiter had seated theyoung man at her table. No doubt he had manoeuvred it so. Nor did sheavoid the guarded acquaintance that resulted in the natural course ofevents.
One afternoon, shortly after his arrival, she had encountered himunexpectedly on a walk through the pines. He appeared surprised to meether, yet she knew intuitively that he had been following her. Still, itwas so different now to have any one seek her company that, in spite ofher uncertainty of him, she almost welcomed his speaking.
There was a certain deference in his manner, too, which did not accordwith Constance's ideas of a detective. Yet he did know something ofher. How much! Was it merely what the rest of the world knew? She couldnot help seeing that the man was studying her, while she studied him.There was a fascination about it, a fascination that the human mysteryalways possesses for a woman. On his part, he showed keenly hisinterest in her.
Constance had met him with more frankness as she encountered him oftenduring the days that followed. She had even tried to draw him out totalk of himself.
"I came here," he had said one day when they were passing the spotwhere he had overtaken her first, "without knowing a soul, notexpecting to meet any one I should care for, indeed hoping to meet noone."
Constance had said nothing, but she felt that at last he was going tocrash down the barrier of reserve. He continued earnestly, "Somehow orother I have come to enjoy these little walks."
"So have I," she admitted, facing him; "but, do you know, sometimes Ihave thought that Malcolm Dodd is not your real name?"
"Not my real name?" he repeated.
"And that you are here for some other purpose than--just to rest. Youknow, you might be a detective."
He had looked at her searchingly. Then in a burst of confidence, he hadreplied, "No, my name is not Dodd, as you guessed. But I am not adetective, as you suspected at first. I have been watching you because,ever since I heard your story here, I have been--well, not suspicious,but--attracted. You seem to me to have faced a great problem. I, too,have come to the parting of the ways. Shall I run or shall I fight?"
He had handed her a card without hesitation. It bore the name, "MurrayDodge, Treasurer, Globe Importing Company."
"What do you mean?" she had asked quickly, hardly expecting an answer."What have you done?"
"Oh, it is the usual trouble, I suppose," he had replied wearily, muchto her surprise. "I began as a boy in the company and ultimately workedmyself up as it grew, until I became treasurer. To cut it short, I haveused funds belonging to the company, lost them. I don't need to tellyou how a treasurer or a cashier can do that."
Constance was actually startled. Was he what he represented himself tobe? Or was he leading her on in this way to a confession of her ownpart, which she had covered so well, in the forgeries of her deadhusband?
"How did you begin?" she asked tentatively.
"A few years ago," he answered with a disconcerting lack of reserve,"the company found that we could beat our competitors by a very simplemeans. The largest stockholder, Mr. Dumont, was friendly with some ofthe customs officials and--well, we undervalued our goods. It was easy.The only thing necessary was to bribe some of the officials. Thepresident of the company, Walton Beverley, put the dirty work on me astreasurer. Now you can imagine what that meant."
He had fallen into a cynical tone again.
"It meant that I soon found, or, rather, thought I found, that everyman has his price--some higher, some lower, but a price, nevertheless.It was my business to find it, to keep it as low as I could withsafety. So it went, from one crooked thing to another. I knew I wascrooked, but not as bad, I think, as the rest who put the actual workon me. I was unfortunate, weak perhaps. That is all. I tried to getmine, too. I lost what I meant to put back after I had used it. Theyare after me now, or soon will be--the crooks! And here I am,momentarily expecting some one to walk up quietly behind me, tap me onthe shoulder and whisper, 'You're wanted.'"
Time had not softened the bitterness of Constance's feelings. Somehowshe felt that the world, or at least society owed her for taking awayher husband. The world must pay. She sympathized with the young man whowas appealing to her for friendship. Why not help him?
"Do you really, really want to know what I think?" asked Constanceafter he had at last told her his wretched story. It was the first timethat she had looked at him since she realized that he was unburdeningthe truth to her.
"Yes," he answered eagerly, catching her eye. "Yes," he urged.
"I think," she said slowly, "that you are running away from a fightthat has not yet begun."
It thrilled her to be talking so. Once before she had tasted thesweetness and the bitterness of crime. She did not stop to think aboutright or wrong. If she had done so her ethics would have been strangelyillogical. It was enough that, short as their acquaintance had been,she felt unconsciously that there was something latent in the spirit ofthis man akin to her own.
Murray also felt rather than understood the bond that had been growingso rapidly between them. His was the temperament that immediatelytranslates feeling into action. He reached into
his breast pocket.There was the blue-black glint of a cold steel automatic. A moment hebalanced it in his hand. Then with a rapid and decisive motion of thearm he flung it far from him. As it struck the water with a soundhorribly suggestive of the death gurgle of a lost man, he turned andfaced her.
"There," he exclaimed with a new light in the defiant, desperate smilethat she had observed many times before, "there. The curtainrises--instead of falls."
Neither spoke for a few moments. At last he added, "What shall I donext?"
"Do?" she repeated. She felt now the weight of responsibility forinterfering with his desperate plans, but it did not oppress her. Onthe contrary, it was a pleasant burden. "According to your own story,"she went on, "they know nothing yet, as far as you can see. You wouldhave forestalled them by taking this little vacation during which youcould disappear while they would discover the shortage. Do? Go back."
"And when they discover it?" he asked evidently prepared for the answershe had given and eager to know what she would propose next.
Constance had been thinking rapidly.
"Listen," she cried, throwing aside restraint now. "No one in New Yorkoutside my former little circle knows me. I can live there in anothercircle unobserved. For weeks I have been amusing myself by the study ofshorthand. I have picked up enough to be able to carry the thing off.Discharge your secretary. Put an advertisement in the newspapers. Iwill answer it. Then I will be able to help you. I cannot say at adistance what you should do next. There, perhaps, I can tell you."
What was it that had impelled her to say it? She could not have told.Murray looked at her. Her very presence seemed to infuse newdetermination into him.
It was strange about this woman, what a wonderful effect she had on him.
A few days before he would have laughed at any one who had suggestedthat any woman might have aroused in him the passions that were nowsurging through his heart. Ten thousand years ago, perhaps, he wouldhave seized her and carried her off in triumph to his clan or tribe.To-day he must, he would win her by more subtle means.
His mind was made up. She had pointed the way. That night Dodge leftWoodlake hastily for New York.
To Constance a new purpose seemed to have entered into a barren life.She was almost gay as she packed her trunks and grips and quietlyslipped into the city a few hours later and registered at a quiet hotelfor business women.
Sure enough in the Star the next morning was the advertisement. Shewrote in a formal way, giving her telephone number. That afternoon,apparently as soon as the letter had been delivered, a call came. Thefollowing morning she was the private secretary of Murray Dodge,sitting unobtrusively before a typewriter desk in a sort of littleanteroom that guarded the door to his office.
She took pains to act the part of private secretary and no more. Asappeared natural to the rest of the office force at first she was muchwith Murray, who made the most elaborate explanations of the detail ofthe business.
"Do they suspect anything?" she asked anxiously as soon as they wereabsolutely alone.
"I think so," he replied. "They said nothing except that they had notexpected me back so soon, I think the 'so soon' was an afterthought.They didn't expect me back at all. For," he added significantly, "I'vebeen in fear and trembling until I could get you. They already haveasked the regular audit company to go over the books in advance of thetime when we usually employ them. I didn't ask why. I merely acceptedit with a nod. It might have meant bringing matters to a crisis now."
He felt safer with Constance installed as his private secretary. True,Beverley and Dumont had viewed her from the start with suspicion.
Constance had been thinking hard out in her little office since she hadbegun to understand how matters stood. "Well?" she demanded. "What ofit? Don't try to conceal it. Let them discover it. Go further. Darethem. Court exposure."
It was bold and ingenious. What a woman she was for meetingemergencies. Murray, who had a will that had been accustomed to bendothers to his purposes except in the instance where they had bent himand nearly broken him, recognized the masterful mind of Constance. Hewas willing to allow her to play the game.
Thus Constance began collecting the very data that would have sentMurray to jail for bribery. Day by day as she worked on, the situationbecame more and more delicate. They found themselves alone much of thetime now. Beverley was, or pretended to be, busy on other matters andavoided Dodge as much as possible. Only the regular routine affairspassed through his hands, but he said nothing. It gave him more timewith her. Dumont came in as rarely as it was possible.
And as they worked along gathering the data Constance came to admireMurray more than ever. She worked patiently over the big books, takingonly those on which the accountant was not engaged at such times as shecould get them without exciting suspicion. Together they dug out theextent of the frauds that had been practiced on the Government foryears back. From the letter files they rescued notes and orders andletters, pieced them together into as near a continuous record as theycould make. With his own knowledge of the books Dodge could count onmaking better progress on the essential things than the regularaccountant of the audit company. He felt sure that they would finishsooner and that they would have a closer report of the frauds of allkinds than could be uncovered by the man who had been set on the trailof Dodge to discover just how much of the illicit gains he had takenfor himself.
Constance became aware soon that whenever she left the office at nightshe was being followed. She had at first studiously repelled the offersof Murray to see her home. It was not that he had taken advantage ofthe situation into which she had put herself. He would never have donethat. Still, she wished a little more time to analyze her ownconflicting feelings toward him. Then, too, several times in thecrowded subway cars she had noticed a face that was familiar. It wasDrummond, never looking directly at her, always engrossed in somethingelse, yet never failing to note where she was going. That must be, shereasoned, some of the work of Beverley and Dumont.
Murray was now working feverishly. As he worked he found himselffeeling differently toward the whole affair. He actually came to enjoyit with all its risks and uncertainty, to enjoy gathering the datawhich, he should have said, ought really to be destroyed. Often hecaught himself wishing that everything had come out all right in theend and that Constance really was his private secretary.
Every moment with her seemed now to pass so quickly that he wouldwillingly have smashed all the clocks and destroyed all the calendars.Association with other women had been tame beside his new friendshipwith her. She had suffered, felt, lived. She fascinated him, as oftenover the books they would stop to talk, talk of things the mostirrelevant, yet to him the most interesting, until she would bring himback inevitably to the point of their work and start him again with anew power and incentive toward the purpose she had in mind.
To Constance he seemed to fill a blank spot in her empty life. If shehad been bitter toward the world for what had happened to her, thepleasure of helping another to beat that harsh world seemed anunspeakably sweet compensation.
At last even Constance herself began to realize it. It was not, afterall, merely the bitterness toward society, that lured her on. She wasnot a woman carved out of a block of stone. There was a sweetness aboutthis association that carried her along as if in a dream. She wasactually falling in love with him.
One day she had been working later than usual. The accountant had shownsigns of approaching the end of his task sooner than they had expected.Murray was waiting, as was his custom, for her to finish before he left.
There was no sound in the almost deserted office building save thebanging of a door echoing now and then, or an insistent ring of theelevator bell as an anxious office boy or stenographer sought to escapeafter an extra period of work.
Murray stood looking at her admiringly as she deftly shoved the pinsinto her hat. Then he held her coat, which brought them close together.
"It will soon be time for the final scene," he remarked. His
manner wasdifferent as he looked down at her. "We must succeed, Constance," hewent on slowly. "Of course, after it is over, it will be impossible forme to remain here with this company. I have been looking around. Imust--we must clear ourselves. I already have an offer to go withanother company, much better than this position in every way--honest,square, with no dirty work, such as I have had here."
It was a moment that Constance had foreseen, without planning what shewould do. She moved to the door as if to go.
"Take dinner with me to-night at the Riverside," he went on, mentioningthe name of a beautifully situated inn uptown overlooking the lights ofthe Hudson and thronged by gay parties of pleasure seekers.
Before she could say no, even though she would have said it, he hadlinked his arm in hers, banged shut the door and they were beingwhisked to the street in the elevator.
This time, as they were about to go out of the building, she noticedDrummond standing in the shadow of a corner back of the cigar counteron the first floor. She told Murray of the times she had seen Drummondfollowing her. Murray ground his teeth.
"He'll have to hustle this time," he muttered, handing her quickly intoa cab that was waiting for a fare.
Before he could give the order where to drive she had leaned out of thewindow, "To the ferry," she cried.
Murray looked at her inquiringly. Then he understood. "Not to theRiverside--yet," she whispered. "That man has just summoned a cab thatwas passing."
In her eyes Murray saw the same fire that had blazed when she had toldhim he was running away from a fight that had not yet begun. As the cabwhirled through the now nearly deserted downtown streets, he reachedover in sheer admiration and caressed her hand. She did not withdrawit, but her averted eyes and quick breath told that a thousand thoughtswere hurrying through her mind, divided between the man in the cabbeside her and the man in the cab following perhaps half a block behind.
At the ferry they halted and pretended to be examining a time table,though they bought only ferry tickets. Drummond did the same, andsauntered leisurely within easy distance of the gate. Nothing seemed toescape him, and yet never did he seem to be watching them.
The gateman shouted "All aboard!"
The door began to close.
"Come," she tugged at his sleeve.
They dodged in just in time. Drummond followed. They started across thewagonway to the opposite side of the slip. He kept on the near side.Constance swerved back again to the near side. Drummond had beenopposite them and they had now fallen in behind him. He was now ahead,but going slowly. Murray felt her pulling back on his arm. With alittle exclamation she dropped her purse, which contained a few coins.She had contrived to open it, and the coins ran in every possibledirection. Drummond was now on the boat.
"All aboard," growled the guard surlily. "All aboard."
"Go ahead, go ahead," shouted Murray, trying to pick up the scatteredchange and scattering it the more. At last he understood. "Go ahead.We'll take the next boat. Can't you see the lady has dropped her purse?"
The gates closed. The warning whistle blew, and the ferryboat,departed, bearing off Drummond alone.
Another cab took them to the Riverside. A new bond of experience hadbeen established between them. They dined quietly and as the lightsgrew mellow she told him more of her story than she had ever breathedto any other living soul.
As Murray listened he looked his admiration for the daring of thelittle woman opposite him at the table.
They drifted....
It was the day of the threatened exposure. Curiously enough, Dodge feltno nervousness. The understanding which he had reached or felt that hehad reached with Constance made him rather eager than otherwise to havethe whole affair over with at once.
Drummond had been shut up for some time in the office of Beverley withDumont, going over the report which the accountant had prepared andother matters--He had come in without seeing either Constance orMurray, though they knew he must be nursing his chagrin over theepisode of the night before.
"They are waiting to see you," reported Constance to Dodge, half anhour later, after one of the office boys had been sent over as a formalmessenger to their office.
"We are ready for them?" he asked, smiling at her.
Constance nodded.
"Then I shall go in. Wait a moment. When they have hurled their worstat me I shall call on you. Have the stuff ready."
There was no hesitation, no misgiving on the part of either, as hestrode into Beverley's office. Constance had prepared the record whichthey had been working on, and for days had been momentarily expectingthis crisis. She felt that she was ready.
An ominous silence greeted Dodge as he entered.
"We have had experts on your books, Dodge," began Beverley, clearinghis throat, as Murray seated himself, waiting for them to speak first.
"I have seen that," he replied dryly.
"They are fifty thousand dollars short," shot out Dumont.
"Indeed?"
Dumont gasped at the coolness of the man. "Wh--what? You have nothingto say? Why, sir," he added, raising his voice, "you have actually madeno effort to conceal it!"
Dodge smiled cynically. "A consultation, will rectify it," was all hesaid. "A conference will show you that it is all right."
"A consultation?" broke in Beverley in rage. "A consultation in jail!"
Still Dodge merely smiled.
"Then you consider yourself trapped. You admit it," ground out Dumont.
"Anything you please," repeated Dodge. "I am perfectly willing--"
"Let us end this farce--now," cried Beverley hotly. "Drummond!"
The detective had been doing some rapid thinking. "Just a moment," heinterrupted. "Don't be too precipitate. Hear his side, if he has any. Ican manage him. Besides, I have something else to say about anotherperson that will interest us all."
"Then you are willing to have the consultation!"
Drummond nodded.
"Miss Dunlap," called Murray, taking the words almost from thedetective's lips, as he opened the door and held it for her to enter.
"No--no. Alone," almost shouted Beverley.
The detective signaled to him and he subsided, muttering.
As she entered Drummond looked hard at her. Constance met him withoutwavering an instant.
"I think I've seen you before, MRS. Dunlap," insinuated the detective.
"Perhaps," replied Constance, still meeting his sharp ferret eyesquarely, which increased his animosity.
"Your husband was Carlton Dunlap, cashier of Green & Company, was henot?"
She bit her lip. The manner of his raking up of old scores, though shehad expected it, was cruel. It would have been cruel in court, if shehad had a lawyer to protect her rights. It was doubly cruel, merciless,here. Before Dodge could interrupt, the detective added, "Who committedsuicide after forging checks to meet his--"
Murray was at Drummond like a hound. "Another word from you and I'llthrottle you," he blurted out.
"No, Murray, no. Don't," pleaded Constance. She was burning withindignation, but it was not by violence that she expected to prevail."Let him say what he has to say."
Drummond smiled. He had no scruples about a "third degree" of thiskind, and besides there were three of them to Dodge.
"You were--both of you--at Woodlake not long ago, were you not?" heasked calmly.
There was no escaping the implication of the tone. Still Drummond wastaking no chances of being misunderstood. "There was one man," he wenton, "who embezzled for you. Here is another who has embezzled. How willthat look when it goes before a jury!" he concluded.
The fight had shifted before it had well begun. Instead of beingbetween Dodge on one side and Beverley and Dumont on the other, it nowseemed to be a clash between a cool detective and a clever woman.
"Mrs. Dunlap," interrupted Murray, with a mocking smile at thedetective, "will you tell us what you have found out since you havebeen my private secretary?"
Constance had not lost contr
ol of herself for a moment.
"I have been looking over the books a little bit myself," she beganslowly, with all eyes riveted on her. "I find, for instance, that yourcompany has been undervaluing its imported goods. Undervaluingmerchandise is considered, I believe, one of the meanest forms ofsmuggling. The undervaluer has frequently to make a tool of a man inhis employ. Then that tool must play on the frailties of an unfortunateor weak examiner at the Public Stores where all invoices andmerchandise from foreign countries are examined."
Drummond had been trying to interrupt, but she had ignored him, and wasspeaking rapidly so that he could get no chance.
"You have cheated the Government of hundreds of thousands dollars," shehurried on facing Beverley and Dumont. "It would make a splendidnewspaper story."
Dumont moved uneasily. Drummond was now staring. It was a new phase ofthe matter to him. He had not counted on handling a woman likeConstance, who knew how to take advantage of every weak spot in thearmor.
"We are wasting time," he interrupted brusquely. "Get back to theoriginal subject. There is a fifty thousand-dollar shortage on thesebooks."
The attempt clumsily to shift the case away again from Constance toDodge was apparent.
"Mrs. Dunlap's past troubles," Dodge asserted vigorously, "have nothingto do with the case. It was cowardly to drag that in. But the othermatter of which she speaks has much to do with it."
"One moment, Murray," cried Constance. "Let me finish what I began.This is my fight, too, now."
She was talking with blazing eyes and in quick, cutting tone.
"For three years he did your dirty work," she flashed. "He did thebribing--and you saved half a million dollars."
"He has stolen fifty thousand," put in Beverley, white with anger.
"I have kept an account of everything," pursued Constance, withoutpausing. "I have pieced the record together so that he can now connectthe men higher up with the actual acts he had to do. He can gainimmunity by turning state's evidence. I am not sure but that he mightbe able to obtain his moiety of what the Government recovers if thematter were brought to suit and won on the information he can furnish."
She paused. No one seemed to breathe.
"Now," she added impressively, "at ten per cent. commission the halfmillion that he saved for you yields fifty thousand dollars. That,gentlemen, is the amount of the shortage--an offset."
"The deuce it is!" exclaimed Beverley.
Constance reached for a telephone on the desk near her.
"Get me the Law Division at the Customs House," she asked simply.
Dumont was pale and almost speechless. Beverley could ill suppress hissmothered rage. What could they do? The tables had been turned. If theyobjected to the amazing proposal Constance had made they might all goto jail. Dodge even might go free, rich. They looked at Dodge and Mrs.Dunlap. There was no weakening. They were as relentless as theiropponents had been before.
Dumont literally tore the telephone from her. "Never mind about thatnumber, central," he muttered.
Then he started as if toward the door. The rest followed. Outside theaccountant had been waiting patiently, perhaps expecting Drummond tocall on him to corroborate the report. He had been listening. There wasno sound of high voices, as he had expected. What did it mean?
The door opened. Beverley was pale and haggard, Dumont worn and silent.He could scarcely talk. Dodge again held the door for Constance as sheswept past the amazed accountant.
All eyes were now fixed on Dumont as chief spokesman.
"He has made a satisfactory explanation," was all he said.
"I would lock all that stuff up in the strongest safe deposit vault inNew York," remarked Constance, laying the evidence that involved themall on Murray's desk. "It is your only safeguard."
"Constance," he burst forth suddenly, "you were superb."
The crisis was past now and she felt the nervous reaction.
"There is one thing more I want to say," he added in a low tone.
He had crossed to where she was standing by the window, and bent over,speaking with great emotion.
"Since that afternoon at Woodlake when you turned me back again fromthe foolish and ruinous course on which I had decided you--you havebeen more to me than life. Constance, I have never loved until now.Nothing has ever mattered except money. I never had any one else tothink of, care for, except myself. You have changed everything."
She was gazing out of the window at the tall buildings. There, in amyriad of offices, lay wealth untold, opportunity as yet untasted toseize that wealth. Only for an instant she turned and looked at him,then dropped her eyes. What lay that way?
"You are clear now, respected, respectable," she said simply.
"Yes, thank God. Clear and with a new ambition, thanks to you."
She had been expecting this ever since that last night. The relief ofMurray to feel that the old score that would have ruined him was nowwiped off the slate was precisely what she had anticipated.
Yet, somehow, it disappointed her. She felt instinctively that hertriumph was burning fast to ashes.
"Keep clear," she faltered.
"Constance," he urged, approaching closer and taking her cold hand.
Was she to be the one to hold him back in any way from the new lifethat was now before him? What if Drummond, in his animosity, ever gotthe truth? She gently unclasped her hand from his. No, that happinesswas not for her.
"I am afraid I am a crook at heart, Murray," she said sadly. "I havegone too far to turn back. The brand is on me. But I am not altogetherbad--yet. Think of me always with charity. Yes," she cried wildly, "Imust return to my loneliness. No, do not try to stop me, you have noright," she added bitterly as the reality of her situation burneditself into her heart.
She broke away from him wildly, but with set purpose. The world hadtaken away her husband; now it was a lover; the world must pay.