My wife accepted my excuse coldly. She dislikes intensely the
occasional outside calls of my profession. She merely observed,
however, that she would leave all the lights on until my return.
"I should think you could arrange things better, Horace," she added.
"It's perfectly idiotic the way people die at night. And tonight,
of all nights!"

I shall have to confess that through all of the thirty years of our
married life my wife has clung to the belief that I am a bit of a
dog. Thirty years of exemplary living have not affected this
conviction, nor had Herbert's foolish remark earlier in the evening
helped matters. But she watched me put on my overcoat without
further comment. When I kissed her good-night, however, she turned
her cheek.

The street, with its open spaces, was a relief after the dark hall.
I started for Sperry's house, my head bent against the wind, my
mind on the news I had just heard. Was it, I wondered, just
possible that we had for some reason been allowed behind the veil
which covered poor Wells' last moments? And, to admit that for a
moment, where would what we had heard lead us? Sperry had said he
had killed himself. But--suppose he had not?

I realize now, looking back, that my recollection of the other man
in the triangle is largely colored by the fact that he fell in the
great war. At that time I hardly knew him, except as a wealthy and
self-made man in his late thirties; I saw him now and then, in the
club playing billiards or going in and out of the Wells house, a
large, fastidiously dressed man, strong featured and broad