"Not Mellony Pember," gasped the captain, a three-cornered smile trying to make headway against his embarrassment as he recalled the ancient tale of breaking the news to the Widow Smith; "Mellony Baldwin." "Mellony Baldwin!" repeated Mrs. Pember, stonily, not yet fully comprehending. The captain grew more and more nervous. "Yes," he proceeded, with the haste of despair, "yes. Mis' Pember, you see Mellony--Mellony's married." "Mellony married!" Strangely enough she had not thought of that. She grasped the doorpost for support. "Yes, she up and married him," went on the captain more blithely. "I hardly thought it of Mellony," he added in not unpleasurable reflection, "nor yet of Ira." "Nor I either." Mrs. Pember's lips moved with difficulty. Mellony married! The structure reared with tears and prayers, the structure of Mellony's happiness, seemed to crumble before her eyes. "And I was to give you this;" and from the lining of his hat the captain drew forth a folded paper. "Then you knew about it?" said Mrs. Pember, in a flash of cold wrath. "No, no, I didn't. My daughter's boy brought this to me, and I was to tell you they was married. And why they set the job onto me the Lord he only knows!" and Captain Phippeny wiped his heated forehead with feeling; "but that's all _I_ know." Slowly, her fingers trembling, she unfolded the note. "I have married Ira, mother," she read. "He took me away in a boat early this morning. It was the only way. I will come back when you want me. If I am to be unhappy, I'd rather be unhappy this way. I can't be unhappy your way any longer. I'm sorry to go against you, mother; but it's my life, after all, not yours, MELLONY." As Mrs. Pember's hands fell to her side and the note slipped from her fingers, the daily tragedy of her married life seemed to pass before her eyes. She saw Captain Pember reel into the house, she shuddered at his blasphemy, she felt the sting of the first blow he had given her, she cowered as he roughly shook Mellony's little frame by her childish arm. "She'd better be dead!" she murmured. "I wish she was dead."