did."

"What he did! What didn't he do, you'd better say! The blackguard!
He smashed the firm flat, that's what he done! And he run off with
Marcellus's sister."

"Marcellus's sister! My stepfather's sister! I didn't know he ever had a
sister. Are you sure he had?"

"Am I sure! What kind of talk's that? Course I'm sure! She was younger
than Marcellus and pretty--say, she WAS pretty! Yes, the outside of her
figurehead was mighty hard to beat, everybody said so; but the inside
was kind of--well, kind of rattly, as you might say. She'd laugh and
talk and go on and Ed Farmer he'd hang over the desk there in the office
and look at her. Just look--and look--and look. How many times I've
seen 'em that way! It got so that folks begun to talk a little mite.
Marcellus didn't, of course; he idolized that girl, worshiped her like
a vain thing, so's to speak. And Cap'n Shad, course he wouldn't talk
because he's always down on tattle-tales and liars, but I've always
thought he was a little mite suspicious and troubled. As for poor
Zoeth--well, it's always his kind that are the last to suspect. And
Zoeth was as innocent then as he is now. And as good, too.

"And then one day it come out, come down on us like the mainmast goin'
by the board. No, come to think of it, it didn't come all to once that
way. Part of it did, but the rest didn't. The rest kind of leaked out
along slow, gettin' a little mite worse every day. I can see it just as
plain as if 'twas yesterday--Marcellus and Shadrach in the office goin'
over the books and addin' up on pieces of paper, and it gettin' worse
and worse all the time. And the whole town a-talkin'! And poor
Zoeth lyin' in his bedroom there to home, out of his mind and ravin'
distracted and beggin' and pleadin' with his partners not to chase 'em,
to let 'em go free for her sake. And the doctor a-comin'! And--"

Mary began to feel that she, too, was in danger of raving distraction.
Between her anxiety to hear the story and her forebodings and growing
suspicions she was becoming more and more nervous as Isaiah rambled on.

"Wait! Wait, please, Isaiah!" she begged. "I don't understand. What had
happened?"

Isaiah regarded her with surprise and impatience.

"Ain't I been tellin' you?" he snapped, testily. "Ain't I this minute
told you? This Ed Farmer had cleared out and run off and he'd took
with him every cent of Hall and Company's money that he could rake and
scrape. He'd been stealin' and speculat