“What say, sergeant?” asked one whose face twinkled for a little devilment. “Man says he’s husband to Mrs. Nankervis,” said the sergeant. “He’s no husband of mine. I declare I never set eyes on him before this night. It’s a dirty trick, nothing else, it’s a dirty trick.” “Why, you’re a liar, saying you never set eyes on me before,” barked the man near the hearth. “You’re married to me, and that girl Maryann you had by me—well enough you know it.” The young soldiers looked on in delight, the sergeant smoked imperturbed. “Yes,” sang the landlady, slowly shaking her head in supreme sarcasm, “it sounds very pretty, doesn’t it? But you see we don’t believe a word of it, and _how_ are you going to prove it?” She smiled nastily. The man watched in silence for a moment, then he said: “It wants no proof.” “Oh, yes, but it does! Oh, yes, but it does, sir, it wants a lot of proving!” sang the lady’s sarcasm. “We’re not such gulls as all that, to swallow your words whole.” But he stood unmoved near the fire. She stood with one hand resting on the zinc-covered bar, the sergeant sat with legs crossed, smoking, on the seat halfway between them, the three young soldiers in their shirts and braces stood wavering in the gloom behind the bar. There was silence. “Do you know anything of the whereabouts of your husband, Mrs. Nankervis? Is he still living?” asked the sergeant, in his judicious fashion. Suddenly the landlady began to cry, great scalding tears, that left the young men aghast. “I know nothing of him,” she sobbed, feeling for her pocket handkerchief. “He left me when Maryann was a baby, went mining to America, and after about six months never wrote a line nor sent me a penny bit. I can’t say whether he’s alive or dead, the villain. All I’ve heard of him’s to the bad—and I’ve heard nothing for years an’ all, now.” She sobbed violently. The golden-skinned, handsome man near the fire watched her as she wept. He was frightened, he was troubled, he was bewildered, but none of his emotions altered him underneath. There was no sound in the room but the violent sobbing of the landlady. The men, one and all, were overcome. “Don’t you think as you’d better go, for tonight?” said the sergeant to the man, with sweet reasonableness. “You’d better leave it a bit, and arrange something between you. You can’t have much claim on a woman, I should imagine, if it’s how she says. And you’ve come down on her a bit too sudden-like.” The landlady sobbed heart-brokenly. The man watched her large breasts shaken. They seemed to cast a spell over his mind. “How I’ve treated her, that’s no matter,” he replied. “I’ve come back, and I’m going to stop in my own home—for a bit, anyhow. There you’ve got it.” “A dirty action,” said the sergeant, his face flushing dark. “A dirty action, to come, after deserting a woman for that number of years, and want to force yourself on her! A dirty action—as isn’t allowed by the law.” The landlady wiped her eyes.