The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1916-12-29
CHATTER Viii.
Entr'acte.

Dawn of Sunday found Whitaker
still awake. Alone in his uncheerful
bedchamber, Lis chair tilted back
against the wall, he sat smoking and
thinking, reviewing again and again
every consideration growing out Of his
matrimonial entanglement. He turned
In at length to the dreamless slumbers
Of mental exhaustion.
The morning introduced him to a
world Of newspapers gone mad and
garrulous with accounts Of the sensa-
ton Of the preceding night. What they
told him only confirmed the history Of
his wife's career as detailed by the
gratuitous Mr.. Ember. There was.
however, no suggestion in any report
that Drummond had not in fact COM
mitted suicide. There had been, ap-
parently, but a single witness of the
felo de Sc, who in the subsequent con-
fusion had vanished. No one dreamed
of questioning the authenticity Of the
report. Several sensational sheets ran
exhaustive resumes, elaborately illus
trated. Of the public life of ''The De-
stroying Angel" 1t seemed to be an
unanimous assumption that the news
of Drummond's suicide had in some
manner been conveyed to the woman
while on the stage.
In the course of the forenoon note
for Whitaker was delivered at the ho-
tel.
The heavy sheet of white paper.
stamped with the address in Fifty-sev-
enth street, bore the message in a
strong but nervous hand:
I rely upon the generosity you promise
me. This marriage of ours. that is no
marriage, must be dissolved. Please let
Clark, 149 Neutrality-suspicious. when and
where you will accept service. Forgive
me II I seem ungrateful and unfeeling. l
to see me now. Some day I hope to see
and thank you: today-it's impossible. I
am going away to forget; If I can
Before nightfall Whitaker had sat
isfied himself that his wife had, in
truth. left her town house. The serv-
ants there informed all who inquired
that they had been told to report and
to forward all letters to Messrs. Ian
ders, Grimshaw & Clark.
Whitaker promptly notified those at
torneys that he was ready to be
served at their convenience. But be-
yond their brief and businesslike ac-
acknowledgement, he heard nothing more
Of the action for divorce.
He sought Max several times with
out success. When at length run to
ground in the roulette room of Forty
fourth street gambling house, the man.
ager was grimly reticent. Warned by
the managers truculent and suspicious
tone that his secret was, after all,
buried no more than skin deep, Whita-
ker dissembled artfully his anxiety,
and abandoned Max to his pet vices.
The newspapers reported Sara Law
as being in retirement in several wide
ly separated sections of the country.
She was also said to have gone abroad,
sailing incognito by a second-class
steamship from Philadelphia.
The nine-days' wonder disintegrated
naturally. The sobriquet of 1.-THE De-
stroying Angel" disappeared from the
newspaper scare-heads. So also the
name of Drummond. Hugh Morten
Whitaker, the dead man come to life,
occupied public interest for a brief
halliday. By the time that the execu-
tors of Carter Drummond and the at
torneys representing his clients began
to make sense of his estate and in
terests, their discoveries failed to COM
mand newspaper space.
Drummond had appropriated to his
own uses every dollar of the small
fortune left in his care by his erstwhile
partner No other client of his had
suffered, however. His peculations had
been confined wholly to the one quar-
ter whence he had had every reason to
anticipate neither protest nor ex-
posure In Whitaker's too-magnani-
nous opinion, the man had not been
so much q thief as one who yielded to
the temptation to convert to his own
needs and uses a property against
which, it appeared, no other living be-
ing cared to enter a claim. The mon
etary loss was an inconsiderable thing
to "a man with an interest in mines in
the Owen Stanley country. He said
uothiu@. Drummond's name remained