The barkeeper stared blankly; his features worked as if he were trying to solve a mathematical problem. He started to speak, but his mouth fell open and remained so; his lower lip hung wet with saliva.
"Why, no," Bradley went on. "No woman can legally marry another man while her husband is alive. She didn't get no divorce. She's your wife yet, and Alf Henley has simply slid in and taken possession of all you got on earth. I know what I'd do; I'd hike back there and walk in as if nothing had happened, and I'd kick that skunk out, too, or shoot the top of his head off. Dick, she never loved anybody but you; she'd be so glad to have you back she'd throw her arms round your neck and hold you tight. It is the talk of the whole county about how true she is to your memory. It has driven Henley mighty nigh crazy."
Wrinkle stood up. He was shaking like a man with palsy. He leaned over the table and gazed almost tearfully into the designing eyes before him.
"Yes, old Het's a good girl," he muttered. "She was always the right stuff. I know in reason that she'd be the—the same as she was. I know her through and through and exactly how to manage her, but, Hank, they all think I'm—- dead!"
"Folks have made mistakes before," Bradley argued, in a tense and yet plausible tone. "You was hit in the head by a falling beam in that storm. You told me so. You was laid up with a lot of others in the hospital, and for a solid month didn't know your hat from a hole in the ground. That's how the report went out that you was done for. Why, Dick, there have been no end of cases where men have not known where they belonged for half a lifetime, and then got it all back in a flash. Nobody would doubt that you was in that fix. I'll help you work it. I'm your friend, and I want to see you get what is due you. That man's robbing you, choking the life-blood out of you. You've simply got to go back and claim your rights."
"I couldn't do it, Hank." The barkeeper sank back into his chair, and, with his elbows on the table, he ran his blunt fingers through the fringe of hair around his glistening pate. "I'm in a hole. I'm clean done for. I wouldn't be good at such a racket as that. I wouldn't know how to fix it. I'd forget my tale; I ain't got much memory. Hush, I saw that gambler turn the corner. He's headed here."
"Dick, you'd better take my advice and sell out," Bradley advised. "You'll be a damn fool if you don't. It's the chance of a lifetime."
"Sh!" Wrinkle hissed, warningly, as a shadow fell athwart the floor and a tall, middle-aged man, with dyed mustache and whiskers, sauntered in at the door. He was jocularly called "the Parson," owing to his dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the same quality.
"I'm up early," he laughed, nodding to Bradley as a stranger might. "My wife pulled me out o' bed. She has got Shanks to agree to sell me his grocery, part cash and part on tick, and she wants me to watch and see what sort o' early-morning trade he's got. She knows I don't know as much about that line as this, but she thinks I kin learn, and maybe keep better company. I reckon it will be a deal betwixt now and ten o'clock—that is, unless you make up your mind to sell out."
Dick Wrinkle was looking into the speaking eyes of his old friend across the table. He knew well enough that the gambler's remark was merely a poker bluff, and yet it stirred certain natural fears within him.