"Twenty-four. He's my junior," she said archly. "I'm old."
"Why do you support a man twenty-four years old? Did he meet with an accident?"
"He was taken sick, and will never be well," answered Podge warily.
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Duff Salter, "was it constitutional disease? You know I am interested."
"No, sir. He was misled. A woman, much older than himself, infatuated him while a boy, and he married her, and she broke his health and ruined him."
Podge's eyes fell for the first time.
Duff Salter grasped her hand.
"And you tell me!" he exclaimed, "that you keep three grown people on five hundred dollars a year? Don't you get help from any other quarter?"
"Agnes has given me board for a hundred dollars a year," said Podge, "but times have changed with her now, and money is scarce. She would take other boarders, but public opinion is against her on all sides. It's against me too. But for love we would have separated long ago."
Podge's tears came.