ne, you say? Where was--was HE?"

"He?"

"Yes. You know who I mean."

He would not speak the hated name. His wife spoke it for him.

"Bennie?" she asked. "Oh, he ain't been with me for 'most two year now.
He--he went away. He's in New York now. And I was alone and I saw Miss
Graham's advertisement for a housekeeper and answered it. I needed the
money and--"

"Hold on! You needed the money? Why, you had money."

"Abner left me a little, but it didn't last forever. And--"

"You had more'n a little. I wrote to bank folks there and turned over
my account to you. And I sent 'em a power of attorney turnin' over some
stocks--you know what they was--to you, too. I done that soon's I got to
Boston. Didn't they tell you?"

"Yes, they told me."

"Well, then, that ought to have helped along."

"You don't s'pose I took it, do you?"

"Why--why not?"

"Why not! Do you s'pose I'd use the money that belonged to the husband
that run off and left me? I ain't that kind of a woman. The money and
stocks are at the bank yet, I s'pose; anyhow they're there for all of
me."

The lightkeeper's mouth opened and stayed open for seconds before he
could use it as a talking machine. He could scarcely believe what he had
heard.

"But--but I wanted you to have it," he gasped. "I left it for you."

"Well, I didn't take it; 'tain't likely!" with fiery indignation. "Did
you think I could be bought off like a--a mean--oh, I don't know what?"

"But--but I left it at the bank--for you. What--what'll I do with it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. You might give it to Sarah Ann Christy; I
wouldn't wonder if she was less particular than I be."

Seth's guns were spiked, for the moment. He felt the blood rush to face,
and his fists, as he brandished them in the air, trembled.

"I--I--you--you--" he stammered. "I--I--you think I--"

He knew that his companion would regard his agitation as an evidence of
conscious guilt, and this knowledge did not help to calm him. He strode
up and down the floor.

"Look out," said Mrs. Bascom, coldly, "you'll kick over the lantern."

Her husband stopped in his stride. "Darn the lantern!" he shouted.

"S-sh-sh! you'll wake up the Brown man."

This warning was more effective. But Seth was still furious.

"Emeline Bascom," he snarled, shaking his forefinger in her face,
"you've said over and over that I wa'n't a man. You have, haven't you?"

She was looking at his shirt cuff, then but a few inches from her no