"Yes, I'm here, Jean", she called, "and the reason I told you to call later was that your people—your father-in-law is right here in the house at this moment. He was sitting right here by the 'phone when you called awhile ago, so now you understand."

"Oh," he cried, his head swimming, and everything grew dark around him. After one long year of agony, of eternal damnation, one long year of waiting and suspense, he had banked his chances, and encountered his enemy the first thing. Right under the telephone he had been! Jean Baptiste who had once been a strong, brave and fearless man, was now trembling from head to foot.

"Now, Jean," he heard Mrs. Pruitt. "I understand everything. You are here to see and get Orlean if you can; but you want to do so without them knowing anything about it, and I agree with you. You wish me to help you, and I will. I'll do anything to right this terrible wrong, but give me time to plan, to think! In the meantime, he is so near that it is not safe for me to talk with you any longer. So you go somewhere, and come back, say: in about an hour. If he is still here, I will say: 'this is the wrong number,' Get it?"

"Yes, Mrs. Pruitt," he replied, controlling the storm of weakness that was passing over him. "I get you."

"Very well, until then."

"Until then," he called, and hung up the receiver.

CHAPTER XI

Table of Contents

"IT'S THE WRONG NUMBER"

JEAN BAPTISTE had come eight hundred miles after one terrible year, to the feet of his father-in-law, and when he realized that such was the case upon hanging up the receiver, his composure was gone. Bitter agony beyond description overwhelmed him when he came from the booth at the end of his brief conversation with Mrs. Pruitt. Never in his life had he been as miserable as he now was. It seemed to him that in the next hour he must surely die of agony. He found a place in the station where he was very much alone, and for a time gave up to the grief and misery that had come over him.

"Unless I find some diversion, I will be unfit for anything but suicide!" he declared, trying to see before him. Out in the West all was wrong. He was now loaded down with debt. His interest was unpaid, also his taxes. His creditors for smaller amounts he had not even called upon to say that he was unable to meet his financial obligations. He had tried being blind to everything but the instance of his wife. He had just deliberately cast everything aside until he could have her. That was it. He had made himself believe that only was it necessary to see her alone, and together they would fly back to the West. He had not reckoned that his arch enemy would be lying like a great dog right at the door he was to enter.