ink she'd like to have you turn a kind of public whipper or
hangman for her sake?"

Browne looked at his wife in surprise. Her eyes flashed as she spoke,
and the little womanly body, whose highest flight had seemed to end in
a London frock and petticoat, had suddenly become something much more
than he had fancied possible to her. She had taken the first place, and
he felt himself overshadowed. He looked up at her with a sort of
reverence, but he held stubbornly to a purpose that had been ossifying
for twenty years.

"That's all well enough for a woman, Judy. But you know that any other
man would do just what I am going to do, under the same circumstances.
I don't like to do what you don't want me to do, but I sha'n't let old
Lewis off. I reckon he'll find my hand hard on him as long as he holds
out. Any other man would do just the same, Judy."

Judith Browne stood still and looked at her husband in silence. Then
she spoke in a repressed voice:

"Sanford Browne, what do you talk to me that way for? Any other man
might worry this old wretch out of his life, but you won't do it. What
did I marry you for? Why did I leave my father's house to take you, a
poor redemptioner just out of your time? It was because you weren't
like other men. I knew you were kind and good-hearted when other men
were cruel and unfeeling. From that day to this you have never made me
sorry that I left home and turned my father against me. But if you do
this thing you have in mind to a poor old wretch that can't help
himself, then you won't be Sanford Browne any more. You'll have that
old man's blood on your hands, and Judy will never get over being sorry
that she left her friends to go with you." The woman's voice had broken
as she spoke these last words, and now she broke down completely, and
sobbed a little.

"What shall I do, Judy?" said her husband softly. "God knows, if I keep
him in sight I shall kill him some day."

"Sell him. Sell him right off. There's Captain Perkins coming up the
bank now."

"You sell him, Judy. Perkins has things you want. I give Lewis to you.
Make any trade you please." Then, as his wife moved away, he followed
her, and said in a smothered voice: "Sell him quick, Judy. Don't stand
on the price. Get him out of sight before I kill him."

Judith went out to meet the peddling captain, who was now strolling
toward the house in hope of an invitation to supper, knowing that Mrs.
Browne's biscuit and fried chicken were