," remarked the
lady with a laugh so merry that it irritated Silas.

"Then you have never been married to me," Silas suggested, still
frowning.

"I thank you kindly, sir, I never have been."

"Well, you never denied it," he said.

"You never gave me an opportunity," she retorted.

"You simply sat back, and watched me make a fool of myself."

"You express it very well."

Silas squirmed on his chair. "Why, you knew me the minute you saw me!"
he cried.

"Therefore you are still sure I am the woman you married in Louisiana.
Well, the man who was driving the hack the day of my arrival, saw you in
the fields, and he made a remark I have never forgotten. He said--she
mimicked Mr. Goodlett as well as she could--'Well, dang my hide! ef thar
ain't old Silas Tomlin out huntin'! Ef he shoots an' misses he'll pull
all his ha'r out.' 'Why?' I asked. 'Bekaze he can't afford to waste a
load of powder an' shot.'"

Silas tried to smile. He knew that the point of Mr. Goodlett's joke was
lost on the lady.

Silas tried to smile, but the effort was too much for him, and he
frowned instead. "You did all you could to humour my mistake," he
declared.

"I certainly did," said Mrs. Claiborne, very seriously. "I had good
reason to believe that your treatment of my sister was not what it
should have been."

"Good Lord! she wouldn't let me treat her well. Why, we hadn't been
married three months before she took a dislike to me, and she never got
over it. The truth is, she couldn't bear the sight of me. I did what any
other young man would have done. I packed up my things and came back
home. I told Dorrington about it when I came back, and he said the
trouble was a form of hysterics that finally develops into insanity."

"Yes, that was what happened to my poor sister," said Mrs. Claiborne,
"and I never knew the facts until a few months ago. Our aunt, you know,
always contended that you were the cause of it all. But Judge Vardeman,
quite by accident, met the physician who had charge of the case, and I
have a letter from him which clearly explains the whole matter."

Silas Tomlin sat silent for a long time, his gaze fixed on the floor.
"Well, well! here I have been going on for years under the impression
that I was partly responsible for that poor girl's troubles; and it has
been a nightmare riding me every minute that I had time to think." He
stood up, stretched his arms above his head, and drew a long breath. "I
thank you for layin