Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/131

 him home, and the whole business would have been neatly ironed out. What do you say, Betty?"

"I'm not going to say anything. I only know that Jim's hurt and unhappy. And, wrong or right, the thing is done."

Armitage left at six in a taxicab the next morning. This early hour was chosen in order to prevent anybody next door observing his departure. His arm ached dully and no doubt would cause him discomfort for some days to come. It was his ankle that bothered him most. He went straight to his hotel, and with the aid of a waiter packed a grip and started for Atlantic City.

He received a letter from Betty two days after his arrival, and the contents rather bewildered him. Doris had not said a word about his midnight adventure. Why? It was utterly out of the question that she could have recognized him. Why, then, did she not confide in Betty?

For ten days he fussed and fumed, harried hotel waiters, bullied the clerks, rode endless miles in wheel-chairs, started a dozen novels and finished none, smoked himself headachy,