"Did her husband treat her very badly? Did he beat her?"
"I am afraid he did when he was very far gone, but, poor thing! she never complained. She always looked sad, though, and she didn't enjoy her life very much."
"Did she ever speak of her father?"
"Once only. She told me she had ill-treated, him, and been a disobedient daughter. I think it was in marrying Ransom."
"Did she ever write to him?"
"She told me she did once, but never received an answer. 'He won't forgive me,' she said, with a sigh, and never wrote again."
"I am sure he did not receive the letter, Mrs. Finn. If he had, he would have noticed it."
"I hope so; at any rate she was sadder than ever when no letter came to her in return. Finally, her husband took sick with a fever. Bad as he had been to her, she nursed him like a devoted wife as she was. But she couldn't save him. Hardly was he dead, when she, too, caught sick, and in the end she died. While she was sick I took little Jack home, for fear he would catch the fever too. I was thinking of adopting him after his mother's death, when the man I spoke of called and took away the boy, saying he would provide for him."
"And that was—how many years ago?"
"Nearly six, I think."