“Yes, sir. I know. I guess I know! She’s my wife—she was—It’s her––”
“You’re looking for?”
“Yes, sir; she ran away and left me. She came down here.”
“Kind of a careless girl, I imagine?”
“Careless! God, no! The finest woman you ever saw. It was me—I was to blame. I never knew, I never knew!”
For a minute he held up his arms, looking tensely at the sky, struggling to overcome the emotion that long had been boiling up in his heart, rending the self-complacency of his mind. Then he broke down—broke down abjectly, and fell upon the cabin floor, crying aloud in his agony, while the newspaper man sitting there whispered to himself:
“Poor devil, here’s a story! He’s sure getting his. I don’t want to forget this; got to put this down. Poor devil!”