Gertrude was unable to elicit from him any very definite account of this interview, but from his disgruntled taciturnity and from one or two things which he let slip, she made her own inferences as to what had taken place. "It never pays to offer your sympathy unless you know it's wanted," she observed sagely. "Remember the time you tried to console Mrs. Swan for her children's not being white."
But the next day it was her turn to be astonished. As she and Eustace were trimming the shrubs in front of their burdock home, who should appear but Martha, with disheveled feathers and a woe-be-gone look.
At sight of her Eustace lost any rancor that had lingered in his breast from yesterday. "What is the matter?" he asked solicitously, as he hurried forward to meet her.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" gasped Martha hysterically. "Forgive me for what I said to you—the things you told me have proved only too true!" Here she broke down entirely.
Eustace, unaccustomed to such displays of emotion on the part of the weaker sex, turned an S. O. S. glance in the direction of Gertrude; but she, keeping scornfully aloof, ignored this call for assistance.
"After you left me," continued the hen, when she was able to regain her speech, "I couldn't help thinking over what you had said, and dreadful suspicions began to enter my mind, so that last night I didn't sleep at all. My head tossed and squirmed under my wing all night long."
Again she broke down, and Eustace felt more helpless than ever.
"When Clarence came to see me to-day, I asked him some pointed questions. He tried to evade them and change the subject, by complimenting me on having just laid another egg. But I could see he was hiding something, and when he went away I got up from my nest and followed him. As I turned the corner of that clump of bushes over yonder, I saw ... I saw my husband—in the act of embracing ... a speckled female!" Uttering these last words, she keeled over, and would have fallen had not Eustace stayed her with his outstretched pinion.
"Bring some smelling-roots!" he called excitedly. "Quick, some garlic!"
When the hen had been restored to consciousness, she thanked Eustace and his wife most humbly, and said, "I have come to you because you offered to help me. Tell me what I must do."