If I was free and fixed in my family affairs like you I'd go to-morrow." There was such an occult positivism in Demorest's manner that for an instant Blandford, who had been married two years, and was transacting a steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business in the adjacent town, actually believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation than the grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and pleasures beside him.

He managed to stammer hesitatingly: "But there's Joan--she--" "Nonsense! Let her stay with her mother; you sell out your interest in the business, put the money into an assorted cargo, and clap it and yourself into the first ship out of Boston--and there you are.

You've been married going on two years now, and a little separation until you've built up a business out there, won't do either of you any harm." Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, was not, however, above putting the onus of embarrassing affection upon HER.

"You don't know, Joan, Dick," he replied.

"She'd never consent to a separation, even for a short time." "Try her.