Then Chapin added, helplessly: "But Culver is engaged to my sister Jean!"
"Jean!" Mrs. Keap exposed her tragic face. "Then—he deceived me! Oh-h! What wretches men are!" The widow commenced to sob.
Outside came Miss Chapin's voice: "So here you are, Mr. Covington!" And the next moment she reappeared, dragging the crippled champion behind her. Thrusting him toward Roberta, she pouted: "There, Mrs. Keap! I give him back to you."
"Perhaps you'd better go on with your explanations," Chapin suggested, coldly, to Speed.
"How can I when you won't listen to me? Hear ye! Hear ye! Culver was engaged to marry Mrs. Keap, but she discovered what a reprobate he is—"
There was indistinguishable dissent of some sort from Mr.
Covington.
"—and she learned to detest him!"
Mrs. Keap likewise dissented in accents muffled.
"Well, she would have learned to detest him in a short time, because she's in love with Jack Chapin; so she came to old Doctor Speed in her troubles, and he promised to fix it all up. Now I guess you four can do the rest of the explaining. Let this be a lesson to all of you. If you ever get in trouble, come to the match-making kid. I'll square it."
They were four happy young people, and they lost no time in escaping elsewhere. When they had gone, their benefactor said to Miss Blake: