Her voice fell a little, and Carrie was touched by the faint thrill in it. She had seen Thomas Custer, a plain, somewhat hard-featured and silent man, and yet this woman, who she fancied had once been almost beautiful, had willingly worn out her freshness in coarse labour for him. Then a tiny flush crept into her face as she remembered that she, too, had a husband, one who gave her everything, and for whom she seldom had even a smile. She was not innately selfish. Indeed, she had shown herself capable of sacrifice. As she sat unobserved in the growing shadow, she sighed. She wondered whether they still remembered her at Barrock-holme, for, if they did, they had seldom written, and she reflected sadly that she had not Mrs. Custer's consolation, since there was nobody else who wanted her. "You really believe this is going to be a lean year?" she said. "I am afraid so. Still, it is scarcely likely to trouble you, except that your husband will have a good deal to face. Tom isn't sure he was wise in sowing so much, with wheat going down, and it seems he considered it necessary to quarrel with the rustlers, too. They are rather vindictive people, and it's a little astonishing they have left him alone, though Tom thinks they or their friends had something to do with what happened to his waggon. He met him driving home the day he was thrown out, and told me that Charley, who had evidently had a bad fall, looked very shaky." Carrie started. "He was thrown out of his waggon?" "Of course! Didn't he tell you? Well, perhaps he would be afraid of its worrying you. It would be like Charley Leland, and here I have been giving him away." Carrie was troubled by an unpleasant sense of confusion as she remembered that her husband had really told her, and what her attitude had been; but Mrs. Custer had more to say. "Charley Leland is going to have his hands full this year. The fall in wheat is bad enough, and it is quite likely the rustlers will make trouble for him. Then he must fall out with a man at the settlement, who Tom says is in league with them. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned that, though I almost think it was the only thing he could do." Carrie, seeing Mrs. Annersly look up sharply, controlled herself by force of will. "Would you mind telling me why you think that?" she asked calmly. Mrs. Custer appeared to be looking at her in astonishment. "You don't know? He hasn't told you that, either?" "No," said Carrie quietly, "he certainly hasn't." The woman in the big chair sat silent for several moments, and then made a little deprecatory gesture. "Even if your husband doesn't thank me for telling you, I think you ought to know. It appears from what Tom heard, two or three of the loungers at the hotel were talking about you. Charley came into the verandah and heard them." "Ah," said Carrie, with a sharpness in her voice that suggested pain, "so that was how it came about. No doubt half the people in the settlement know what they were saying?"