so much right to put them as I?"

Grant found that he must bestir himself. Thus far, the honors lay with
this rather sinister-looking yet quiet-mannered visitor.

"I am sorry if anything I have said lends color to that belief," he
answered. "Candidly, I began by assuming that you forfeited any legal
right years ago to interfere in behalf of Miss Melhuish, living or dead.
Let us, at least, be candid with each other. Miss Melhuish herself told
me that you and she had separated by mutual consent."

"Allow me to emulate your candor. The actual fact is that you weaned my
wife's affections from me."

"That is a downright lie," said Grant coolly.

Ingerman's peculiar temperament permitted him to treat this grave
insult far more lightly than Grant's harmless, if irritating, reference
to the police.

"Let us see just what 'a lie' signifies," he said, almost judicially. "If
a lady deserts her husband, and there is good reason to suspect that she
is, in popular phrase, 'carrying on' with another man, how can the
husband be lying if he charges that man with being the cause of the
domestic upheaval?"

"In this instance a hypothetical case is not called for. Three years ago,
Mr. Ingerman, you had parted from your wife. Your name was never
mentioned. Apparently, none in my circle had even heard of you. Miss
Melhuish had won repute as a celebrated actress. I met her, in a sense,