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FIDELIA

"How did she have a husband in London, David?"

"He went there. He's in the war with the Canadian forces. She married him five years ago, a year and a half before she came to Northwestern. He's a man named Bolton she met in California."

Bolton was the name of the man of whom Myra had talked, Alice remembered; he was the man who had been at Palo Alto.

David continued, "She married him in Idaho the summer after she left Stanford. They—stayed a while in Idaho, Alice; then they had trouble and separated."

"Oh, divorced, you mean?"

"No. They just separated and then Fidelia believed he died. But he didn't."

"Then she was married all the time."

"Yes; but she believed he was dead."

"But he wasn't."

"No."

"How wasn't he, David?"

"He'd gone to Alaska and she thought—and his family thought—he'd died there; but he was just staying away."

"Then he came back and heard about you?"

"No," said David. "No; he didn't know about me at all."

"What did happen, David?"

"She heard he was alive and she left me. It happened the night I got here from home. I went home from Rock Island, Alice. I went to see my mother; I found her sick so I stayed there two more days.