“The election?” Mr. Ranney’s eyes sought for a connecting clue. “Oh, yes, of course, the Club election. I don’t know how it’s getting on, I don’t care a hang how it goes. Did you see the weather report to-night, Laurence? They say there’s a storm brewing up the coast, where my wife’s gone. Those steamers are nothing but rotten old tubs; it’s only a question when they’ll go to Davy Jones if a storm hits them. The _Peerless_ foundered three years back, you remember. When I think of that girl and her two babies out there to-night in that old _Patriot_, with nothing but a plank between them and the bottom—I tell you I’ll be glad to get a wire to-morrow night and know they’re all right. I’ve gone all to pieces thinking of it; lost my nerve completely.” “Couldn’t they have gone by rail?” asked Mr. Laurence practically. “Oh, yes, they could, but—they’d have to stop off on the way, and then—— Well, I _wanted_ her to, but she thought it took too much money.” “But if you insisted on her taking it?” “Insisted on her taking it! Why, man alive, she has it all, that’s the trouble; I hand all the funds over to that rascal, else we’d never have a penny. Oh, there’s always plenty for me when I want it, but she won’t spend it on herself. I can’t make her. But I’ll get even with her some day, you see if I don’t. I’ll plunge her into extravagance. What’s that shutter slamming for? I tell you I don’t like the way the wind is rising. When I think of that girl and her two babies——” “Why don’t you come over on our piazza and sit awhile?” suggested the visitor; to keep rolling over and over on a wheel of marital sympathy embarrassed him. “No, I thank you, I rather think I’ll turn in early,” said Ranney, rising as the other had done. Mr. Laurence hurried home to his wife, childishly eager to startle her with his piece of news. Ranney was going to bed at nine-of-the-clock. “Well, I’m glad he’s missed her for one evening,” she retorted viciously. “It won’t last, though.” But the next night when she happened to stroll over to the dividing fence in the half gloom, she discerned a figure sitting on the steps. He rose and came slowly forward, as she spoke, removing the old felt basin from his head perfunctorily. “It looks very lonely over here without Mrs. Ranney and the children,” she said. “Yes, it does,” answered Mr. Ranney. He knocked his pipe ruminatively on the top rail. “I didn’t realize before what a helpless being a man is without his wife; I never can remember where she keeps the clean towels.” “I suppose she felt that she needed the change,” suggested Mrs. Laurence, a little stiffly.