ain the men stared at one another, and Jim Goodman was the only one
who had the miserable courage to speak. "S'pose him an' her were
married," he said, in a thin voice like the squeal of a fox.

"Which of you wants to be knocked down can make a statement to the
contrary," thundered James. "Is that what you make of it?"

Goodman shuffled from one foot to the other. Men nudged shoulders,
Goodman spoke. "Nobody never knows what is true or ain't true in them
newspapers," he observed, and there was a note of alarm in his voice.

"I did not read a thing in the whole column which even implied such a
thing as you intimated," James said hotly. "Don't put it off on the
newspapers!"

Then another man spoke, a farmer, tall, dry, lank, and impervious. He
was a man about whom were ill-reports. His wife had died some years
before, and he had a housekeeper, a florid, blonde creature, dressed
with dingy showiness, of whom people spoke with covert laughs. "All we
want to know is why Doctor Gordon has never said that her was his wife,
and not his sister," he said in a defiant nasal voice.

The malignant Jim Goodman saw his chance. He jumped upon it like a
spider. "That's so," he said. "Why didn't he say she was his
housekeeper?" There was a shout of coarse laughter. The farmer gave a
hateful look at Goodman and puffed at a rank pipe.

James was furious, but he saw the necessity of a statement of some kind,
and his wits leaped to action. "Well," he said, "suppose there was a
question of money."

The crowd pressed closer and gaped.

"Money!" said Goodman.

"Yes, money," pursued James recklessly. "Did you never hear of people
being opposed to marriages, rich people I mean, and threatening to
disinherit a woman if she married the man they did not pick out for
her?"

"Was that it?" asked Goodman.

"I am not saying that it was or was not. I am not going to discuss
Doctor Gordon's secrets with you. It's none of your business, and none
of my business. All I am saying is this, suppose there had been a girl
years ago with a very rich bachelor brother. Suppose the brother had
been jilted by a girl, and hated the whole lot of women like poison, and
had no idea of getting married himself, and his sister would be his only
heiress, and he had set his foot down that she should not marry Doc--the
man she had set her heart upon. Suppose he went to--well, the South Sea
Islands, for the rest of his life, to get out of sight and sound of
women l