He was on his feet at his quickest, but stopped at the sound of her
voice, reviving. "What--what's that, M'riar?" he cried. "Say it again,
old girl!" So strange and incredible had the words seemed that he
thought he heard, that he could not believe in his own voice as he
repeated them:--"_Your_ husband!" He was not clear about it even then;
for, after a pause long enough for the candle to burn up, and show him,
as he fell back in his seat, Aunt M'riar, tremulous but relieved at
having spoken, he repeated them again:--"Your _husband_! Are ye sure
you're saying what you mean, M'riar?"

That it was a relief to have said it was clear in her reply:--"Ay, Mo,
that's all right--right as I said it. My husband. You've known I had a
husband, Mo." His astonishment left him speechless, but he just managed
to say:--"I thought him dead;" and a few moments passed. Then she added,
as though deprecatingly:--"You'll not be angry with me, Mo, when I tell
you the whole story?"

Then he found his voice. "Angry!--why, God bless the wench!--what call
have I to be angry?--let alone it's no concern of mine to be meddlin'
in. Angry! No, no, M'riar, if it's so as you say, and you haven't gone
dotty on the brain!"

"I'm not dotty, Mo. You'll find it all right, just like I tell you...."

"Well, then, I'm mortal sorry for you, and there you have it, in a word.
Poor old M'riar!" His voice went up to say:--"But you shan't come to no
harm through that character, if that's what's in it. I'll promise ye
that." It fell again. "No--I won't wake the children.... I ain't quite
on the shelf yet, nor yet in the dustbin. There's my hand on it,
M'riar."

"I know you're good, Mo." She caught at the hand he held out to give
her, and kept it. "I know you're good, and you'll do like you say. Only
I hope he won't come this way no more. I hope he don't know I'm here."
She seemed to shudder at the thought of him.

"Don't he know you're here? That's rum, too. But it's rum, all round.
Things _are_ rum, sometimes. Now, just you take it easy, M'riar, and if
there's anything you'll be for telling me--because I'm an old friend
like, d'ye see?--why, just you tell me as much as comes easy, and no
more. Or just tell me nothing at all, if it sootes you better, and I'll
set here and give an ear to it." Uncle Mo resumed his former seat, and
Aunt M'riar put back the hand he released in her apron, its usual place
when not on active service.

"There's nothing in it I woul