He paused; and the silence was broken only by the slow, cosey ticking of the liberated clock.
"Well!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, at last, in a ruminating tone. "Well! well! Be you a drinkin' man?"
"I never was till I lost my job," he answered, sullenly. "I had a little then. I had a little the night he sassed me."
"Well! well!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, again. And then she continued, musingly: "So I s'pose you're Joe Mellen, an' the man you struck was Solomon Ray?"
He came to his feet with a spring.
"How'd you know?" he shouted.
"Law! I've been visitin' over Hillside way!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, comfortably. "You couldn't ha' been very smart not to thought o' that when I mentioned my darter Lucy, an' where the childern went to school. No smarter'n you was to depend on that old wooden button! I know all about that drunken scrape. But the queerest part on't was—Solomon Ray didn't die!"
"Didn't die!" the words halted, and he dragged them forth. "Didn't die?"
"Law, no! you can't kill a Ray! They brought him to, an' fixed him up in good shape. I guess you mellered him some, but he's more scairt than hurt. He won't prosecute. You needn't be afraid. He said he dared you to it. There, there now! I wouldn't. My sake alive! le' me git a light!"
For the stranger sat with his head bowed on the table, and he trembled like a child.