It was a tale with no wag that he poured into my ears.
"When you left and jumped into the trolley," he said, "I became suddenly aware that I was alone. Toto had vanished. Inquiries were futile and fruitless. No one had seen her. She appeared to have dematerialized in a flash. I went to both the hotels and to all the places where we were in the habit of stopping. The result was the same."
"I stood in the middle of the street and wowed. I was sure that Totesy Babe had been killed or stolen. It was horrible. I could not face you alive."
It would have taken courage without a doubt.
"No,--I thought of that, but to run, meant out of your life. To return without Toto would amount to the same thing. It was a case of 'Which way I fly is hell.... Infinite wrath and infinite despair.' There was no alternative but the Bay for me. Living, even if I remained in your life, Toto would have stood forever between us. Dead, you would think kindly of me and mourn for me also. It was the lesser evil."
"It seemed too bad to be true. A last hope remained. Returning to Marston's where we had separated, I questioned the door man. Yes, he had seen a black and white dog going in alone over an hour ago. The elevator man came next. He had let a dog off at the fifth floor, supposing she accompanied a customer. The mystery became less opaque. Toto was sitting under the counter where she had seen you last. The shop was closing and the assistants were puzzled what to do, as she refused to move and bared her teeth when any one came near her."
There was no faking his seriousness. Mr. Saltus was in a state of collapse. The way he reacted to this episode made whole the broken glass, and put a sponge over the incident forever.
In a week or so, arrangements being made for us to meet and be married in Montreal, he returned to the East. The Montreal idea had merits. As we had decided to live under British laws it was as well to be married under them. Mr. Saltus' former matrimonial knots had been tied in New York and Paris. He wanted to try a new place for luck. Owing to his divorce from Helen Read he could not be married in New York State in any event. Besides, he wanted to avoid a thing which loomed like a menacing monster in his path,--publicity. The newspapers had been none too lenient over his first offense. With the attempt to secure a divorce from his second wife, all the past had been resurrected and flung in his face in none too complimentary a way. His imagination visualized the headlines over a third marriage. "Saltus Lures Third Victim to the Altar." "Bluebeard Put to Blush." "At the Close of a Misspent Life Saltus Takes Third Wife to Nurse Him in His Declining and Reclining Years."