“Why, he's a brute.”
She smiled again. “Didn't you know that a woman can love a brute? It wasn't that. Even when he made me live in the saloon, and when I found out what his business really was—” she paused. “I was brought up a little better than this, you know.”
“Yes, I have always thought that.”
“And when I learned that he wasn't—well, honest, I don't believe I should have cared very much.”
“Oh, I guess he is not dishonest, is he?”
“He is bad enough, I'm afraid. He—I don't know—I don't believe it would do any good to tell you—”
“No, don't, if you'd rather not, Madge.”
“I don't care—I'd just as soon. You don't know what a relief it is to have somebody I can talk out with. I have guarded my tongue so long. And I suppose, even after all that is past, that if he hadn't left me—”
“You don't mean that he has gone?”
She nodded. “It comes to the same thing. He will drop in once in a while, I suppose. But he has gone back to the Lake with Captain Smiley, and that means that he wants to see—” she turned toward the shadow of the oaks—“there's somebody up in Michigan that—that he—”