known for a year or more that you see Madeleine for three or four
hours every day, that you have managed to have those hours together,
no matter what her engagements, that you are desperately in love with
each other. The gossip has been infernal. I do not deny that a good
deal of the blame rests on my shoulders. I not only neglected her but
I encouraged her to see you. But I thought her above scandal or even
gossip, and I never dreamed it was in her to love--to lose her head
over any man. She was sweet and affectionate but cold--my fault
again. Any man who had the good fortune to be married to Madeleine
could make her love him if he were not a selfish fool. Well, I have
been punished; but if I have lost her I can save her--and her
reputation. You must go. There is no other way."

"That is nonsense. You exaggerate because you are suffering from a
shock. You know that I cannot leave San Francisco with this great
newspaper about to be launched. If it is as bad as you make out I
will give you my word not to see Madeleine again. And as I shall be
too busy for Society it will quickly forget me."

"Oh, no, it will not. It will say that you are both cleverer than
you have been in the past. If you leave San Francisco--California
--for good and all--it may forget you; not otherwise."

"Do you know that you are asking me to give up my career? That I
shall never have such an opportunity in my life again? My whole
future--for usefulness as well as for the realization of my not
ignoble ambitions--lies in San Francisco and nowhere else?"

"Don't imagine I have not thought of that. And San Francisco can ill
afford to spare you. You are one of the greatest assets this city