"Men, without house or home above their heads, roving here and there, and turning up in all sorts of odd places; caring very little for life as a general thing, and making fortunes just to fling them away again, and all for one reason. You don't ask me what that is? No doubt you know already very well."
"I think not, sir."
"Because a woman has jilted them!"
Here was a long pause, and Mr. Townsend's pipe emitted short puffs with surprising rapidity. A guilty conscience needs no accuser, and the widow's cheek was dyed with blushes as she thought of the absent Sam.
"I wonder how women manage when they get served in the same way," said the stranger musingly; "you never meet them roaming up and down in that style."
"No," said Mrs. Townsend, with some spirit, "if a woman is in trouble she must stay at home and bear it, the best way she can. And there's more women bearing such things than we know of, I dare say."
"Like enough. We never know whose hand gets pinched in a trap unless they scream. And women are too shy or too sensible—which you choose—for that."
"Did you ever, in all your wanderings, meet any one by the name of Samuel Payson?" asked the widow, unconcernedly.
The stranger looked toward her; she was rummaging the table-drawer for her knitting work, and did not notice him. When it was found, and the needles in motion, he answered her.
"Payson—Sam Payson? Why, he was my most intimate friend! Do you know him?"