The woman turned her face back to the lake; it was evident that she had no plan.
"I thought," the dentist began, recalling her story, "I thought when you'd started in the schools—it was a mighty hard thing to do to get you in; it took all my pull on Mahoney."
The woman's face flushed. "I know," she murmured. "They don't want married women. But if it hadn't been for Mahoney—"
"Then," interrupted the dentist, "he'd been good enough to let you alone for most a year, and I thought you were out of your troubles."
"I knew he would come back," she interposed quietly.
"But now he comes back just as everything is nice, and worse, you come across him when he is nigh bein' shot to death. Then, worse yet, by what the papers said, you went to the hospital with him and gave the whole thing away. When I saw the name, Alves Preston, printed out, I swore."
Mrs. Preston smiled at his vehemence.
"Tell me, Alves," the old man asked in a rambling manner, "how did you ever come to marry him? I've wanted to ask you that from the first."
Mrs. Preston rose from the chair and pulled her cloak about her.
"I couldn't make you understand; I don't myself now."