Chapter 2

"You made no plan what to do if your friend didn't turn up?" Roger
enquired. "Have you any other friends in Chicago?"

"Not one."

"Have you ever lived here, or stayed here?"

"No."

If he had now been capable of suspecting her, all his first suspicions
of Miss Beverley White would have marshalled themselves in his brain.
Nothing had happened during the whole journey to justify her fantastic
story of mysterious danger. As for the wonderful envelope, who could
tell that it didn't contain blank paper? But Sands had got beyond this
stage. If he were a fool, he asked to be nothing better.

"Is that friend you talk of more than a friend?"

"No, only a person I trusted for reasons I can't tell you."

"I see. And you don't know what will become of you since he's failed
you, and you're turned adrift in a strange town?"

"I don't know at all. I feel stunned--as if it didn't matter."

"It does matter to a girl like you, left alone without friends in a big
city where you're a stranger. Have you money?"

"I had enough and more than enough for my journey here, enough to pay
you back for all you've done. I expected to get more money, and to be
looked after in Chicago. Perhaps I can find work."

"Do you think after all that's passed I can go coolly on my way leaving
you alone in Chicago? I may be a fool, but I have another proposal to
make." He paused.

She looked up as if startled.

"What do you say to marrying me and going on to New York as my wife?"

For a minute he thought she was going to faint. She seemed suddenly to
become limp. She swayed a little on her feet, and he caught her arm.

"You're tired out, standing so long," he exclaimed.

"No, it's not that. Forgive me. It was almost too much, finding out the
height of your goodness. Yet, 'height' is the word!"

"You'll marry me, then!" he cried.

"No," the girl answered, "I thank you with my whole heart, but I can't."

"Why ... why?" he stammered. "Unless you're married already."

"I'm not married. No man has ever been anything to me. I swear that to
you! But I can't tell you any more about myself."

Roger did not speak for a minute. At last he said:

"See here, you and I have got to talk. We can't do that where we are,
with people jostling us this way and that. There's one thing certain.
However this ends, I'm not going to leave you alone in Chicago. We've
got plenty of time. Will you let me take you to a quiet restaurant? We
can thrash matters out across the table."

"Very well," she agreed.

Roger knew Chicago. When he had arranged to have his luggage put in safe
keeping, he got a taxi and took the girl to a dull but good place, sure
to be practically empty at that hour. They sat down at a table in a
corner, and Sands ordered an oyster stew.

"Do you dislike me?" he began his catechism. "Could you like me enough
to think of me as a husband, if we'd met in a conventional, society sort
of way?"

"Yes, I could. I do want you to know that. You've been so splendid to
me."

"So far so good, but I haven't been splendid. I've fallen in love with
you. I haven't been in love before ... that is, not since I was twenty.
I've never had time...."

"You haven't taken much time in doing it now!" She gave a queer little
laugh with a sob in it.

"I've learned the lesson that time isn't the thing needed. I want you
more than I ever wanted anything in my life, and I'll take you ... as
you stand."

"You haven't stopped to think ... to count the cost," she said. "Imagine
what it would be for a man like you to have a wife he knew nothing
about, just a single figure cut off its background, in a picture he'd
never seen. People would ask: 'Who was she?' and there'd be no answer."

"They'd not ask me that," said Roger obstinately. "And I wouldn't care
what they asked each other. I'm not a society man, though I might enjoy
putting my wife on the top floor. And I can do that with you if I
choose! You say I'm a man of importance. I'm important enough anyhow to
take the wife I want, and to put her where I want her to be."

"Yes, perhaps. But it wouldn't be only for a little while that I'd not
be allowed to tell you about myself. It would be for always. You
couldn't love me enough to be happy in spite of that."

"I could be happy," Roger insisted, "if you'd love me."

"I'd adore you! But...."

"Then there isn't any 'but'. I don't say I shouldn't like to know all
about my wife and her people and her past. Still, I'd rather have you
with a future and no past than any other woman with both. I can't do
without you, and I'm going to have you ... now, to-day, as soon as I can
buy a license and get a parson to make us man and wife."

"But if you should regret it?"

"I never will be sorry, if you'll do what you just said, adore
me ... half as much as I'll adore you."

Her eyes gave him a beautiful answer. Roger Sands felt that nothing
could make him regret the coming of such a romance into his hustling
life.

This, then, was the story behind the sensation when Roger Sands came
back from a short trip to California bringing a wife, a girl who had
been a Miss Beverley White, a girl nobody had ever seen or heard of
before.