"Did you not know where he went on leaving Berwin Manor?"
"Sakes! how should I? Mark and I didn't pull together nohow, so he kicked over the traces and made tracks for the back of beyond."
"And you might square it, Lyddy, by saying as 'twasn't you who upset the apple cart."
"Well, I should smile to think so," said Mrs. Vrain vigorously. "I was as good as pie to that old man."
"You did not get on well together?" said Link sharply.
"Got on as well as a cat hitched along with a dog. My stars! there was no living with him. If he hadn't left me, I'd have left him—that's an almighty truth."
"So the gist of all this is that Mr. Vrain left you ten months ago, and did not leave his address?"
"That's so," said the widow calmly. "I've not seen nor heard of him for most a year, till pop there tumbled across your paragraph in the papers. Then I surmised from the name and the missing finger and the scarred cheek, that I'd dropped right on to Mark. I wouldn't take all this trouble for any one else; no, sir, not me!"
"My Lyddy does not care about being a grass-widow, gentlemen."
"I don't mind being a grass-widow or a real one, so long as I know how to ticket myself," said the candid Lydia; "but seems to me there's no question that Mark's sent in his checks."