lovely wedding from their house. They didn't see through him
any more than I did, and in a way it wasn't strange, because he wasn't
hiding anything in particular or misrepresenting anything. He believed
all he said about the big money he was going to make and the grand times
we should have. He was born with the sort of nature that always believes
things are going to turn out right without labor and perseverance on
your part. He wasn't fond of work, that's sure. What we ought to have
done was find out something about his past; but even that, I guess,
wouldn't have opened our eyes, with him before us looking like one of
ourselves. And it wasn't a very long past; he was young. He came of good
folks, I guess. I never saw them, but there are ways of telling. Good
folks, but not wealthy, and so as to get rich easily he had tried one
thing after another. He was quick' discouraged, and the moment the thing
didn't look so big or easy he wanted to throw it over and try something
else. Then I've come to the conclusion he loved change for its own
sake--go somewhere else, take a new name, and start a new business,
talking big. It came out after he died that he'd been known under half a
dozen names in as many States. There simply wasn't anything _to_
him. I don't believe he meant to act like a skunk, but, then, he hadn't
any principles either to keep him from acting like a skunk, or meaner
than a skunk, when it came to getting himself out of difficulty. And I,
for my sins, had to marry such a fellow as that! It was like there had
stood the good times I'd always wanted, right before me in the body, and
I took them for better, for worse, and got what my ma said I deserved to
get when she tried to cure me of my fancy for good times!"

"Don't!" protested Gerald, softly. "Don't regard as wrong what was so
natural. All who have the benefit of knowing you must thank the stars
which permitted your beautiful love of life to survive the dreadfulness
of which you have given me a glimpse."

"The dreadfulness, Geraldino! I haven't told you anything yet of the
dreadfulness. I haven't come to it. I haven't come to what makes
her"--she nodded toward the portrait,--"look like that."

"Then tell me!" he encouraged her.

"It isn't Jim. When I think of Jim, it only makes me mad. My heart is
hard as stone toward him." She clenched her jaws and looked, in fact,
rather grim. "That he's dead doesn't change it. I hope I forgive him as
a Christian ought t