married, for I at least am not blind. The crew run away, the ship is
sold for a great deal of money, you know that man's address and you
conceal it; you do not find what you were sent to look for, and yet you
burn the ship; and now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to
secrecy! But I am pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in
silence and see my sick and ruined husband betrayed by his condescending
friend. I will give you the truth for once. Mr. Dodd, you have been
bought and sold."

"Mamie," cried Jim, "no more of this! It's me you're striking; it's only
me you hurt. You don't know, you cannot understand these things. Why,
to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I couldn't have looked you in the
face. He saved my honesty."

"I have heard plenty of this talk before," she replied. "You are a
sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it. But I am a clear-headed
woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's hypocrisy. Did he
not come here to-day and pretend he would take a situation--pretend he
would share his hard-earned wages with us until you were well? Pretend!
It makes me furious! His wages! a share of his wages! That would have
been your pittance, that would have been your share of the _Flying
Scud_--you who worked and toiled for him when he was a beggar in the
streets of Paris. But we do not want your charity; thank God, I can work
for my own husband! See what it is to have obliged a gentleman! He
would let you pick him up when he was begging; he would stand and look
on and let you black his shoes, and sneer at you. For you were always
sneering at my James; you always looked down upon him in your heart, you
know it!" She turned back to Jim. "And now when he is rich," she began,
and then swooped again on me. "For you are rich, I dare you to deny it;
I defy you to look me in the face and try to deny that you are
rich--rich with our money--my husband's money----"

Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by this time,
bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words. Heart-sickness, a
black depression, a treacherous sympathy with my assailant, pity
unutterable for poor Jim, already filled, divided, and abashed my
spirit. Flight seemed the only remedy; and making a private sign to Jim,
as if to ask permission, I slunk from the unequal field.

I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by the sound
of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by name. He had f