Red Pepper's Patients by Grece S. Richmond

Crowding his hat upon his head with a vigorous jerk after his reluctant parting with Anne Linton at the church door, Jordan King jumped into his car and made his way slowly through the streets to the hotel where Aleck awaited him. For the first few miles out of the city he continued to drive at a pace so moderate that Aleck more than once glanced surreptitiously at him, wondering if he were actually going to sleep at the wheel. It was not until they were beyond the last environs and far out in the open country that, quite suddenly, the car was released from its unusual restraint and began to fly down the road toward home at the old wild speed.

Somehow or other, after this encounter, King could not settle down to his work till he had seen Red Pepper Burns. He could not have explained why this should be so, for he certainly did not intend to tell his friend of the meeting with Anne Linton, or of the basis upon which his affairs now stood. But he wanted to see Burns with a sort of hunger which would not be satisfied, and he went to look him up one evening when he himself had returned early from his latest trip to the concrete dam.