"I can't find the papers, sir," excused the maid.
"Wait!" Theodore closed the door, exclaiming in white heat, "Molly, where are those papers?"
"In my room," replied Molly sulkily.
Mr. King gave the order, and again they were behind closed doors. Molly made a sorry picture of shame when Theodore looked at her.
"I'll get to the bottom of this if it kills me," he said wearily.
"Theo, Theo, don't read the papers!" she gasped. Then she fell forward at his feet. "I love you, dear; I love you."
"You've lost your mind, Molly," he said harshly. "You're mad, completely mad."
"No, I'm not. Listen, Theodore, I'm here at your feet, miserable, unhappy; I want to be forgiven----"
"Then tell me what you did to Jinnie Grandoken."
"I can't! I can't!"
When another knock sounded on the door, Theodore opened it and took the papers through the smallest imaginable crack. Molly crawled to a chair and leaned her head upon the seat. Without a word, Theodore sat down and began to turn the pages of the papers nervously. As he read both accounts of Lafe's trial, bitter ejaculations fell from his lips. The story of Bobbie's dramatic death and Morse's suicide brought forth a groan. When he placed the papers slowly beside him on the floor, Molly raised her face, white and torn with grief.
"Now you know it all, forgive me!"
"Never, while I live!" he cried. "What ungodly wretchedness you've made that child suffer! And you were married all the time to Morse, and the mother of that poor little boy!"
"Yes," sobbed Molly.
Then a sudden thought took possession of him.
"You and Morse made Jinnie write me that first letter."
Molly nodded.
"May God forgive you both!" he stammered, and whirled out of the room.
An hour later, with new strength and purpose, Theodore threw a few clothes into a suitcase, ordered the fastest motor in the garage, and was standing on the porch when Molly came swiftly to him.
"Theodore," she said, with twitching face, "if you go away now, you won't find me here when you get back."
He glanced her over with curling lip.
"As you please," he returned indifferently. "You've done enough damage as it is. If you've any heart, stay here with the only person in the world who has any faith in you."
Vacantly the woman watched the motor glide away over the smooth white road, and then limply slid to the floor in a dead faint.