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The moment he ceased speaking Peter began again. "Your wife's hurt bad," he said. "Doc Crombie's only just left her." Will started. He had forgotten. A sudden fear held him silent, while he waited for more. But no more was forthcoming. Only the blue eyes of his informant searched his face, and, to the guilty man, they seemed to be reading to the very depths of his soul.

"You have watched well," he observed in a low, strange tone. "As saith the Scripture, 'Many daughters have done virtuously; but thou excellest them all." He took her arm; and they hastened down the avenue. Then, leaving Hugh Crombie's inn on their right, they found its master in a spot so shaded that the moonbeams could not enlighten it.

He never failed to seize upon an opportunity to launch a poisonous shaft, or sneer at the class to which Jim and such men as Peter belonged. Before he left that saloon he meant to obtain a verdict against his man. Doc Crombie's anger was hot against the hardware dealer. He meant ruling against him in the end, but he was not quite sure how that ruling would be generally received.

Thus it was that, just now, a considerable measure of his spleen was aimed at the absent doctor. "It's clear as day. That's sure. Doc Crombie's hangin' back," he was saying, in his curiously mean, high-pitched voice. "It ain't for me to say he ain't got grit. No, folks. But it's easy to guess for why he hangs back."

There was something defiant in the dark eyes. The man, to his swift imagination, was unduly perturbed. He glanced down at his clothes, and his eyes fixed themselves greedily upon the fingers of the hand nearest to him. A flash of triumph shot into his eyes as he heard Doc Crombie's voice suddenly break the silence. "How'd it happen? Who did it?" he asked sharply. Jim's answer came promptly.

Rust sniffed audibly, and hoped she would be happy, but warned her strongly against the tribulations of an ever-increasing family, and finally flopped heavily into a chair calling loudly for brandy. It was, in Doc Crombie's words, "the old hens who got emotions."

But, since his acquaintance with Ellen Langton, he had rarely entered Hugh Crombie's doors; and an interruption in that acquaintance was the cause of his present appearance there. Edward's jealous pride had been considerably touched on Ellen's compliance with the request of the angler.

The bench which now sustained him, and on which were carved the names of many former occupants, was Hugh Crombie's favorite lounging-place, unless when his attentions were required by his guests. No demand had that day been made upon the hospitality of the Hand and Bottle; and the landlord was just then murmuring at the unfrequency of employment.

No, I did not see her; but I will venture to say that it was Dame Crombie's self, and no other." "Well, perhaps it might," said the other, doubtingly. "Her head was turned from me, and she was gone like a shadow." "Dame Crombie is no shadow, and never vanishes like one," resumed Edward. "You have mistaken the slipshod servant-girl for a lady."

The gloom of his thoughts a mood of mind the more intolerable to him, because so unusual had driven him to Hugh Crombie's inn in search of artificial excitement. But even the wine had no attractions; and his first glass stood now almost untouched before him, while he gazed in heavy thought into the glowing embers of the fire.