“I hearn, Caleb, that the new wife left ye for that young rigger what got his face smashed. ’Most too young, warn’t she, to be stiddy?” “No, I ain’t never thought so,” replied Caleb quietly. “Weren’t no better gal ’n Betty; she done all she knowed how. You’d ’a’ said so if ye knowed her like I did. But ’twas agin natur’, I bein’ so much older. But I’d rather had her go than suffer on.” “Served ye durn mean, anyhow,” said the keeper. “Did she take anything with ’er?” “Nothin’ but the clo’es she stood in. But she didn’t serve me mean, Tony. I don’t want ye to think so, an’ I don’t want ye to say so, nor let nobody say so, neither; an’ ye won’t if you’re a friend o’ mine, which you allers was.” “I hearn there was some talk o’ yer takin’ her back,” the keeper went on in a gentler tone, surprised at Caleb’s blindness, and anxious to restore his good feeling. “Is that so?” “No, that ain’t so,” Caleb answered firmly, ending the conversation on that topic and leading it into other channels. This interview of the light-keeper’s was soon public property. Some of those who heard of it set Caleb down as half-witted over his loss, and others wondered how long it would be before he would send for Betty and patch it all up again, and still others questioned why he didn’t go over to Stonington and smash the other side of Lacey’s face; they heard that Billy had been seen around there. As for Betty, she had found work with a milliner on the edge of the village, within a mile of Captain Joe’s cottage, where her taste in trimming bonnets secured her ready employment, and where her past was not discussed. That she was then living with Captain Joe and his wife was enough to gain her admission. There had been days, however, after her return, when she would have given way under the strain, had it not been for her remembered promise to Mrs. Leroy,—the only woman, except Aunty Bell, who had befriended her,—and for the strong supporting arm of Captain Joe, who never lost an opportunity to show his confidence in her. And yet in spite of these promises and supports she could have plunged into the water many a time at the end of the dock and ended it all. She would sit for hours in her little room next Aunty Bell’s, on Saturday afternoons, when she came earlier from work, and watch for the Screamer or one of the tugs to round in, bringing Caleb and the men. She could not see her own cottage from the window where she sat, but she could see her husband come down the sloop’s side and board the little boat that brought him to his landing. She would often think that she could catch his good-night as he pushed off. On Monday mornings, too, when she knew he was going out, she was up at daylight, watching for a meagre glimpse of him when the skiff shot out from behind the dock and took him aboard to go to his work on the Ledge.