elito the other day workin' for the
other side agin him. With that he laughs, says he didn't want any better
friends than me, but that I must be livin' in the backwoods not to
know that Wynyard Marion had escaped, and was then at sea on his way
to Mexico or Central America. Then we agreed to terms, and the long and
short of it is, Mollie, that I'm to have the schooner with a hundred and
fifty dollars a month, and ten per cent. shares after a year! Looks like
biz, eh, Mollie, old girl? but you don't seem pleased."

She had put aside the arm with which he was drawing her to him, and
had turned her white face away to the window. So HE had gone--this
stranger--this one friend of her life--she would never see him again,
and all that would ever come of it was this pecuniary benefit to her
husband, who had done nothing. He would not even offer her money, but he
had managed to pay his debt to her in this way that their vulgar poverty
would appreciate. And this was the end of her dream!

"You don't seem to take it in, Mollie," continued the surprised Zephas.
"It means a house in 'Frisco and a little cabin for you on the schooner
when you like."

"I don't want it! I won't have it! I shall stay here," she burst out
with a half-passionate, half-childish cry, and ran into her bedroom,
leaving the astonished Zephas helpless in his awkward consternation.

"By Gum! I must take her to 'Frisco right off, or she'll be havin' the
high strikes here alone. I oughter knowed it would come to this!" But
although he consulted "Cap" Simmons the next day, who informed him it
was all woman's ways when "struck," and advised him to pay out all the
line he could at such delicate moments, she had no recurrence of the
outbreak. On the contrary, for days and weeks following she seemed
calmer, older, and more "growed up;" although she resisted changing her
seashore dwelling for San Francisco, she accompanied him on one or two
of his "deep sea" trips down the coast, and seemed happier on their
southern limits. She had taken to reading the political papers and
speeches, and some cheap American histories. Captain Bunker's crew,
profoundly convinced that their skipper's wife was a "woman's rights"
fanatic, with the baleful qualities of "sea lawyer" superadded, marveled
at his bringing her.

It was on returning home from one of these trips that they touched
briefly at San Francisco, where the Secretary of the Fishing Company
came on board. Mrs. Bunker was