MAMIE BODINE.
Mr. Breeze laid down the paper with a slight accession of color, as if its purport had been ironical. How little had he done compared to the devotion of this delicate woman or the sacrifices of that rough friend! How deserted looked this nest under the eaves, which had so long borne its burden of guilt, innocence, shame, and suffering! For many days afterwards he avoided it except at night, and even then he often found himself lying awake to listen to the lost voices of the children.
But one evening, a fortnight later, he came upon Roberts in the hall. “Well,” said Breeze, with abrupt directness, “did he get away?”
Roberts started, uttered an oath which it is possible the Recording Angel passed to his credit, and said, “Yes, HE got away all right!”
“Why, hasn't his wife joined him?”
“No. Never, in this world, I reckon; and if anywhere in the next, I don't want to go there!” said Roberts furiously.
“Is he dead?”
“Dead? That kind don't die!”
“What do you mean?”
Roberts's lips writhed, and then, with a strong effort, he said with deliberate distinctness, “I mean—that the hound went off with another woman—that—was—in—that schooner, and left that fool Shuckster adrift in the plunger.”