第60章

"Twenty-seven minutes to three," said Westbrook, scanning his time-piece.

"We have just enough time," said Dawe."We will go to my flat at once.I will write a note, address it to her and leave it on the table where she will see it as she enters the door.You and I will be in the dining-room concealed by the porti`eres.In that note I'll say that I have fled from her forever with an affinity who understands the need of my artistic soul as she never did.When she reads it we will observe her actions and hear her words.Then we will know which theory is the correct one--yours or mine.""Oh, never!" exclaimed the editor, shaking his head."That would be inexcusably cruel.I could not consent to have Mrs.Dawe's feelings played upon in such a manner.""Brace up," said the writer."I guess I think as much of her as you do.It's for her benefit as well as mine.I've got to get a market for my stories in some way.It won't hurt Louise.She's healthy and sound.Her heart goes as strong as a ninety-eight-cent watch.It'll last for only a minute, and then I'll step out and explain to her.

You really owe it to me to give me the chance, Westbrook."Editor Westbrook at length yielded, though but half willingly.And in the half of him that consented lurked the vivisectionist that is in all of us.Let him who has not used the scalpel rise and stand in his place.Pity 'tis that there are not enough rabbits and guinea-pigs to go around.

The two experimenters in Art left the Square and hurried eastward and then to that south until they arrived in the Gramercy neighborhood.Within its high iron railings the little park had put on its smart coat of vernal green, and was admiring itself in its fountain mirror.Outside the railings the hollow square of crumbling houses, shells of a bygone gentry, leaned as if in ghostly gossip over the forgotten doings of the vanished quality.

_Sic transit gloria urbis_.

A block or two north of the Park, Dawe steered the editor again eastward, then, after covering a short distance, into a lofty but narrow flathouse burdened with a floridly over-decorated fa,cade.

To the fifth story they toiled, and Dawe, panting, pushed his latch-key into the door of one of the front flats.

When the door opened Editor Westbrook saw, with feelings of pity, how meanly and meagerly the rooms were furnished.

"Get a chair, if you can find one," said Dawe, "while I hunt up pen and ink.Hello, what's this? Here's a note from Louise.She must have left it there when she went out this morning."He picked up an envelope that lay on the centre-table and tore it open.He began to read the letter that he drew out of it; and once having begun it aloud he so read it through to the end.These are the words that Editor Westbrook heard:

"Dear Shackleford:

"By the time you get this I will be about a hundred miles away and still a-going.I've got a place in the chorus of the Occidental Opera Co., and we start on the road to-day at twelve o'clock.Ididn't want to starve to death, and so I decided to make my own living.I'm not coming back.Mrs.Westbrook is going with me.

She said she was tired of living with a combination phonograph, iceberg and dictionary, and she's not coming back, either.We've been practising the songs and dances for two months on the quiet.

I hope you will be successful, and get along all right! Good-bye.

"Louise."

Dawe dropped the letter, covered his face with his trembling hands, and cried out in a deep, vibrating voice:

_"My God, why hast thou given me this cup to drink? Since she is false, then let Thy Heaven's fairest gifts, faith and love, become the jesting by-words of traitors and fiends!"_Editor Westbrook's glasses fell to the floor.The fingers of one hand fumbled with a button on his coat as he blurted between his pale lips:

_"Say, Shack, ain't that a hell of a note? Wouldn't that knock you off your perch, Shack? Ain't it hell, now, Shack--ain't it?"