“You want to know, do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, the 'Bascom' part wa'n't mine no more—not all mine. I'd given it to you.”
“O—oh! oh, I see. And you ran away from your name as you ran away from your wife. I see. And . . . why, of course! you came down here to run away from all the women. Miss Ruth said this mornin' she was told—I don't know who by—that the lightkeeper was a woman-hater. Are you the woman-hater, Seth?”
Mr. Atkins looked at the floor. “Yes, I be,” he answered, sullenly. “Do you wonder?”
“I don't wonder at your runnin' away; that I should have expected. But there,” more briskly, “this ain't gettin' us anywhere. You're here—and I'm here. Now what's your idea of the best thing to be done, under the circumstances?”
Seth shifted his feet. “One of us better go somewheres else, if you ask me,” he declared.
“Run away again, you mean? Well, I sha'n't run away. I'm Miss Ruth's housekeeper for the summer. I answered her advertisement in the Boston paper and we agreed as to wages and so on. I like her and she likes me. Course if I'd known my husband was in the neighborhood, I shouldn't have come here; but I didn't know it. Now I'm here and I'll stay my time out. What are you goin' to do?”
“I'm goin' to send in my resignation as keeper of these lights. That's what I'm goin' to do, and I'll do it to-morrow.”
“Run away again?”