At eight o'clock in the morning, when the warm sun beat upon the sea and flooded the rooms of the villa, Stainton, still clad in his travelling clothes, returned to the drawing-room and rang the bell for the maid.

"Go to Mrs. Stainton's room," he said to the maid, who spoke more or less English, "and tell her that, as soon as she is ready to see me, I——"

"But, monsieur——"

"You may add that I won't keep her fifteen minutes."

"But, monsieur, it is since an hour madame is gone out."

"Gone out?" Why had she gone so early and so silently? Had she not tried to conceal her exit, he would have heard her. The natural suspicion flashed through Stainton's mind. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Madame say you are not to be disturbed."

"Hum. I see. Did she leave any message?"

"But, yes; she leave this note here. She say the note to be given to monsieur only when monsieur demanded her whereabout."

Stainton took the envelope that the girl handed to him and, as the maid left the room, opened it. He was reading it through for the twentieth time when the domestic reappeared.

"A gentleman to see monsieur," she said.

"What gentleman?" asked Stainton, though he guessed the answer to his question.

The maid presented a card.

"Show Captain von Klausen up here," said Jim.

A moment later, husband and lover stood alone together.

"Good-morning," said Stainton.

He held out his hand, and von Klausen, after a swift hesitation, took it.

The Austrian's expression was disturbed. He was unshaven. It was obvious that he, too, had passed a sleepless night. The sight seemed, somehow, to restore his host's self-confidence.

"You will please to pardon for this early intrusion——" von Klausen began.

Stainton smiled.

"You are always so pleasant, Captain," he said, "that you never intrude. Besides, the earlier the better. As it happens, I was just this moment thinking of you."

Von Klausen bowed. There was a brief pause, the Austrian's blue eyes wandering about the room in an endeavour to escape Stainton's glance, and Stainton's eyes fastened thoughtfully upon the Austrian.

"Well?" asked the husband.

Von Klausen coughed.

"Madame is—is——" he started, but stopped short.

"You asked for me. Did you expect to find her up at this time of day?"

"Oh, no—no: certainly not. Pardon me. I forgot the hour."

"Ah, you often forget the hour, don't you, Captain?"

The Austrian braced himself. He raised his chin defiantly. He met the issue directly.

"You refer," he asked, "to my late call of last evening—yes?"

"More or less. I am rather curious about that call."

"Sir, there is nothing about it to excite your curiosity. You asked me to call. There is nothing of my call that you may not learn from your wife."

"No doubt. Of course not; but it may be that I prefer to ask you."

Von Klausen was in a corner. Anger he could have met with anger, but here was something that he did not comprehend.

"I can answer no question," he said, stiffly, "that you have not asked of Mrs. Stainton."

"How do you know that I haven't asked her?"

"I do not know that you have."

"You are sure of that?"

"What do you wish to say, Mr. Stainton?"

"I mean: are you sure that you haven't seen her since you left here last night?"

The Austrian's face expressed a bewilderment that Stainton could not mistrust.

"How is that possible?" inquired von Klausen.

"Oh, of course!" Stainton, convinced, shrugged his shoulders. "However, I do want to make a few inquiries of you."

"Then I prefer to wait until your wife descends, so that you may make them in her presence."

Stainton still held in his left hand the letter that Muriel had addressed to him. He tapped it upon the knuckles of his right hand.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I can't conveniently wait so long. Captain von Klausen, are you in love with my wife?"

The Austrian rose precipitately. His blond moustache bristled.

"Sir!" said he.

"I merely wanted to know."

"At your question I am amazed, sir."

"Oh, I really had a good reason for asking."

"In my country no reason suffices for such a question."

"Hum. Well, you see, neither my wife nor I belong to your country, and you are not in your country now. However, there is no need for you to get excited, Captain. I am sorry if I seem to have intruded on your confidence with a lady; but, to tell you the truth, as my wife has admitted that she is in love with you, I was not unnaturally somewhat curious to discover whether you reciprocated her affection."

Von Klausen's eyes protruded. This husband was, obviously, mad. He might have been driven mad by his discovery. The discovery seemed a thing accomplished. With a great in-taking of breath, the Austrian made answer:

"You have loved your wife. Why should I be ashamed to say that I love her?"

If von Klausen expected an explosion, he was disappointed.

"Well," said Stainton, calmly, "that is one way of looking at it."

"Please?"

"Never mind. You say you love her?"

"Yes."

Stainton looked at him narrowly, from under heavy brows. He regularly tapped his knuckles with the envelope.

"For a day?" he asked.

"Sir?"

"I mean: is this a world-without-end business so far as you are concerned, or is it one of your little amusements by the way?"

The Austrian clenched his teeth.

"Do you mean to insult me, sir?"

"I assure you that I mean nothing of the sort."

"Then you insult your wife!"

"Not at all. I am sorry that you should suppose I could think ill of her."

"If you do not think ill of her, you have no right to ask such a question as this which you have asked."

"It's not impossible that I should be a trifle interested, you know."

"I cannot understand, sir, how you can have the calmness——"

"Why not? She is my wife, you see. What I want to know is whether you are genuinely, sincerely in love with her. You know what I mean. As between man and man now: is this a for-ever-and-ever affair with you?"

The Austrian's bewilderment found vent in a long sigh.

"It is," said he.

"Good," said Stainton. He thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets and bent forward. "If I let her get a divorce from me, will you marry her?" he asked.

"Do you make a joke?"

"I don't consider this a joking matter, Captain. I ask you a frank question and I want a frank answer."

Von Klausen doubted his ears, but he replied:

"I would desire nothing better, but my faith forbids."

"You're sincere in that?"

"Absolutely."

"I mean about your faith, you know."

"Whatever else may be charged against me, sir, heresy or infidelity may not be charged."

"Have a cigar," said Stainton.

He produced his cigar-case, gave the Austrian a cigar, held a steady match while his guest secured a light, and then, with a cigar between his teeth, began to walk rapidly up and down the room, puffing quietly, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Look here," he said. "I am the kind of man that lives to look ahead and prepare for all contingencies. I do not always succeed, but I see no harm in trying. Well. When I first began to think about this thing, I said I would be prepared for the worst, if the worst came. I remembered your prejudices, and I had a fellow do some research work for me at the BibliothÈque Nationale, and yesterday I spent some time in the seminary library at Avignon. My dear fellow, you haven't got a leg to stand on."

"No leg?"

"Not in your objections to divorce and remarriage."

"The Church——"

"Was founded by, or at any rate pretends allegiance to, Jesus of Nazareth. Now, Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have said—it's not certain—something that may seem to bear out your theories; but that something which may be twisted to your way was said just about two thousand years ago to a small, outlying, semi-barbarous province. Are you going to try to apply it to civilisation to-day?"

The Austrian had philosophically seated himself in the chair against which Jim had leaned the night before.

"I apply the Sermon on the Mount," said von Klausen.

"Do you? I didn't think you did. But we'll pass that. Your faith bases its argument on the interpretation of that text made by the Early Church, and the Christian Fathers interpreted it in just about two dozen different ways."

"So?" said von Klausen: he would humour this lunatic.

"In the first place, at the beginning of the Christian Era marriage in Rome was a private partnership that the parties could dissolve by mutual consent, or by one notifying the other, as in any other partnership; that was part of Roman law, and for centuries neither the Church nor its Fathers disputed that law. In all the history of the first phase of Christianity in Rome you can't find one time when the whole Church accepted the idea that marriage was indissoluble. Once or twice the Church tried to get the law to require the Church's sanction before decree of divorce would be legally valid, but that was not a denial of divorce; it was a recognition and an endeavour to capture the control and exploitation of divorces."

"That matters nothing," said von Klausen. "These things were determined otherwise. With all my heart I wish not, but they were."

"How? The Church began by having nothing to do with marriages. Weddings were not held in the churches and so of course marriage was not considered a sacrament. I can give you chapter and verse for everything I say. About the only early council that tried to interfere with the law was the Council of 416, or some time near that. It tried to make Rome abolish divorce, but no emperor listened to it till early in the ninth century—Charlemagne, and he practised divorce himself. Only a little earlier—I think it was in 870—the Church officially allowed dissolution of marriage. In the Middle Ages the episcopal courts allowed divorce and were supported by the popes."

"Did you not find that the Council of Trent declared marriage indissoluble?"

"I expected to, but I didn't. All it said was that if anyone said the Church erred in regarding marriage as indissoluble, anathema sit. The Council of Trent seems to have been trying to patch up a peace with the Eastern Church, which never did regard marriage as indissoluble." He shook his head at von Klausen, smiling gravely, "You see, it won't do," he said.

"You have not quoted the Fathers," the Austrian almost mockingly said.

"I can. I took care of that. I can go back to St. Paul: he allowed divorce when a husband and wife had religious differences. Chrysostom tolerated divorce. So did Justin Martyr and Tertullian. Origen was so afraid of women that he—he mutilated himself, but he allowed divorce for certain causes, and when he condemned it in certain phases, he was careful to say that he was 'debating' rather than affirming."

"St. Augustine is the authority in this matter."

"And no one other person ever said so many contradictory things about it. Why, he thought his marriage was almost as wrong as his affairs without marriage. He considered the social evil a necessity and wouldn't condemn downright polygamy. In one place he admits divorce for adultery; in another he merely 'doubts' if there is any other good cause, and in the third he won't have it at all. When he finally gets down to bed-rock, he says that the text on which the anti-divorce people take their stand is so hazy that anybody is justified in making a mistake."

Stainton paused to relight his cigar.

"But you are talking of divorce," said von Klausen, "not of remarriage."

"Remarriage follows logically," Jim responded. "The one flows from the other."

Von Klausen shrugged.

"Yes," persisted Jim. "Jerome declared against a second marriage after the death of the first husband or wife, but your faith doesn't follow him, does it? The Fathers differed in this just as they did in everything else connected with the subject. The early bishops publicly blessed the remarriage of at least one woman that had divorced her husband on the ground of adultery. Epiphanius said that if a divorced person remarried the Church would absolve him from blame. It was weakness, he said, and I suppose it is, but the Church would tolerate the weakness and wouldn't reject him from its rites or its salvation. Origen didn't approve of remarriage, but he said that it was no more than mere technical adultery, and the furthest that St. Augustine himself could go was to have 'grave doubts' about it."

The Austrian, despite his nervousness, had shown an intellectual interest in Stainton's exposition, but the interest was only intellectual.

"It makes no matter what they said the Church should do," he insisted; "it is what the Church has done. The Church has made marriage a sacrament."

"Doesn't the Church rule that a marriage can be consummated only by an act of the flesh?"

"Yes."

"Then how can what is done by the flesh be a sacrament?"

"I do not know. I know that it is. The Church, whether early or late, has spoken and it has said that marriage is a sacrament indissoluble save by the death of the husband or the wife."

Stainton put down his cigar.

"Captain," he said, "you are in earnest, aren't you?"

The Austrian flushed, but did not flinch.

"I am," said he.

"You love her?"

"I do."

"Truly?"

"With heart and soul, both."

"And there is no changing your faith?"

"No way."

"There isn't any short-cut, any quick trail over the mountain, any bridle-path? A fellow cannot get an Indulgence—nothing of that sort?"

"I wish—I wish deeply that one might; but—no."

"No," said Jim with a little sigh, "I suppose not nowadays. I looked that up, too. Public opinion is pretty strong, and as wrong as usual." He seemed to shake the subject from him. "And," he ended, "now that I have bored you with my cheap pedantry, I remember that I have been a bad host: I have not asked you your errand."

What change was coming over the madman now?

"My errand?" asked von Klausen.

"Exactly. You come here at about 9 A.M., and I take up your valuable time with a discussion of ecclesiastical polity. What was it that you wanted to see me about?"

What the Austrian had wanted he had long since learned. He had no sooner left the villa on the night previous than he began to doubt whether his supposition that Stainton was unsuspicious was quite so well founded as he had at first imagined. He recalled a certain constraint in the husband's deportment, and then he imagined other tokens that had not been displayed. In the end, he decided to return to Muriel's home at the earliest possible moment, discover whether there were any real danger and, if there was, face its consequences. Now, however he learned that Muriel had made some sort of confession to Stainton and that Stainton had received that confession in a manner inexplicable to von Klausen. Confronted with Jim's abrupt question, he did not know what to say, and so he found himself saying:

"I should like to see Mrs. Stainton."

Stainton whistled.

"I wish you could," he answered. "Indeed, indeed, I wish you could, my boy; but I am sorry to say that it is out of the question."

"You forbid it?" Von Klausen wished that these confounded Americans could be brought to see the simplicity of settling complex difficulties by the code of honour.

"I didn't say that I forbade it; I said it was out of the question. I meant that it was out of the question."

The Austrian bent forward, hot anger in his eyes.

"Do you dare to deprive her of her liberty?" he asked.

"On the contrary, my dear sir, she has taken her liberty. She has gone away."

The thing seemed incredible to von Klausen:

"Away from Marseilles?"

Stainton nodded.

"That's it," he agreed.

There shot through von Klausen's mind the thought that this lunatic had killed her. If so, he would surely kill the lunatic or be killed in the attempt.

"I don't believe it," he said. "I believe that you are——"

"Captain von Klausen, I have learned all that I want to know about your religious faith, and I am not in the slightest degree interested in the question of your other beliefs. I say to you that my wife has gone away, and I am afraid that, whether you like it or not, you are obliged, for the present, to accept my word."

"I will not accept your word!"

"Pardon me, but I don't see what else you can very well do. Of course, you might watch the house, but the Corniche gets very hot by midday."

"You joke. You can joke about such a thing!"

"I have never been so serious as I am now."

Stainton emphasised his words with a gesture of his left hand, in which he held the now crumpled letter.

"That letter!" said von Klausen with sudden inspiration. "It is from her!"

"It is."

"Ah, you have intercepted a letter from her to me!"

"I am not in the habit of reading my wife's personal letters to other people—when she writes any. This note is addressed to me, and it is this note that tells me of her departure."

"It tells you where she is going?"

"It tells me that and more. It tells me that she is sorry for a wound she thinks she has inflicted on my feelings, and she proposed to look for rest in a certain secluded place."

The Austrian's blue eyes brightened.

"A secluded place?" he repeated, excitedly.

"Exactly; but I shall not tell you its name. I shall keep that to myself until I have had another interview with my wife."

The Captain looked closely at Stainton.

"You mean to follow and chastise her?" he asked.

"There," said Stainton, quietly, "I think we reach a point where the matter becomes entirely my own affair."