The little Judge, finding things going against the first family of the Forks, felt also that he in some way was concerned, and felt called upon to explain. This was his theory and explanation. "The Widow was a widow?" "Yes." "The Legislature met at San Jose on the first day of September?" "Yes." "The Legislature granted that first session enough divorces to fill a book?" "Well?" "This young woman, this Widow, might 'a bin married; she might 'a bin on her way to the mountains; she might 'a stopped in there and got her divorce, one day on her way up; she might 'a come right on here and got coaxed into marrying Sandy." "Rather quick work, wouldn't it be, Judge?" "Well, considering the climate of Californy, I think not." And the little man pushed out his legs under the card-table, puffed out his little red cheeks, leaned back, and felt perfectly certain that he had made a great point, while the wise men of the camp sat there more confused than before. However, as the days went by men went on with their work in their mines down in the boiling, foaming, full little streams, now over-flowing from the snows that melted in the warm Spring sun, and said but little more on the subject. It was certain that they were very doubtful, for they only shook their heads as a rule when the subject was mentioned now in the great center. That was a bad sign, and very hard evidence of displeasure with their patron saint of the Autumn and the long weary Winter. The Widow must have known all this. Not that Sandy had said a word further than she had almost forced him to speak; not that she had yet ventured down into the Forks, or that Bunker Hill had breathed a word about it, but I fancy that women know these things by instinct. They somehow have a singularly clear way of coming upon such things. Day after day she read Sandy's face as he came up from his mine, dripping with the yellow water spurted from the sluice all over his broad slouch hat, long brown beard, and stiff duck breeches; she read it eagerly as one reads the papers after a battle, and read it truly as if it had been a broadsheet in print, and found herself in disfavor with the camp. Then she began to think if Sandy was thinking of his promise; if he had remembered, and still remembered the time when in her great agony he promised, though all the world turned against her and cried "shame!" he would not upbraid her. She wondered if he ever wished he had gone when she commanded him and implored him to go, and she began to read his face for the truth. She read, read him all through, page after page, chapter after chapter. She found there was not a doubt in all the realm of his soul, and her face took on again a little of its gladness. Yet the touch of tenderness deepened, the old sadness had settled back again, and this time to remain.