“You don't say it was Christy Jopplyn, do you?” said he, at last. “You don't tell me it was Jopplyn?”
“The fellow called himself Jopplyn, but I know nothing of him beyond that.”
“Why, he's mad jealous about that wife of his; that little woman with the corkscrew curls, and the scorbutic face, that came over with us. Oh! you did not see her aboard, you went below at once, I remember; but there was, she, in her black ugly, and her old crape shawl—”
“In mourning?”
“Yes. Always in mourning. She never wears anything else, though Christy goes about in colors, and not particular as to the tint, either.”
There came a cold perspiration over me as I heard these words, and perceived that my proffer of devotion had been addressed to a married woman, and the wife of the “most jealous man in Europe.”
“And who is this Jopplyn?” asked I, haughtily, and in all the proud confidence of my present security.
“He's a railway contractor,—a shrewd sort of fellow, with plenty of money, and a good head on his shoulders; sensible on every point except his Jealousy.”
“The man must be an idiot,” said I, indignantly, “to rush indiscriminately about the world with accusations of this kind. Who wants to supplant him? Who seeks to rob him of the affections of his wife?”
“That's all very well and very specious,” said he, gravely; “but if men will deliberately set themselves down at a writing-table, hammering their brains for fine sentiments, and toiling to find grand expressions for their passion, it does not require that a husband should be as jealous as Christy Jopplyn to take it badly. I don't think I'm a rash or a hasty man, but I know what I 'd do in such a circumstance.”