“Gone?” echoed Abner, with a whitening face. “Mrs. Byers? Where?” “Run away! Never come back no more! Gone!” A vague idea that had been in Abner's mind since Byers's last visit now took awful shape. Before the unfortunate Byers could collect his senses he felt himself seized in a giant's grasp and forced against the tree. “You coward!” said all that was left of the tolerant Abner--his even voice--“you hound! Did you dare to abuse her? to lay your vile hands on her--to strike her? Answer me.” The shock--the grasp--perhaps Abner's words, momentarily silenced Byers. “Did I strike her?” he said dazedly; “did I abuse her? Oh, yes!” with deep irony. “Certainly! In course! Look yer, pardner!”--he suddenly dragged up his sleeve from his red, hairy arm, exposing a blue cicatrix in its centre--“that's a jab from her scissors about three months ago; look yer!”--he bent his head and showed a scar along the scalp--“that's her playfulness with a fire shovel! Look yer!”--he quickly opened his collar, where his neck and cheek were striped and crossed with adhesive plaster--“that's all that was left o' a glass jar o' preserves--the preserves got away, but some of the glass got stuck! That's when she heard I was a di-vorced man and hadn't told her.” “Were you a di-vorced man?” gasped Abner. “You know that; in course I was,” said Byers scornfully; “d'ye meanter say she didn't tell ye?” “She?” echoed Abner vaguely. “Your wife--you said just now she didn't know it before.” “My wife ez oncet was, I mean! Mary Ellen--your wife ez is to be,” said Byers, with deep irony. “Oh, come now. Pretend ye don't know! Hi there! Hands off! Don't strike a man when he's down, like I am.” But Abner's clutch of Byers's shoulder relaxed, and he sank down to a sitting posture on the root. In the meantime Byers, overcome by a sense of this new misery added to his manifold grievances, gave way to maudlin silent tears. “Mary Ellen--your first wife?” repeated Abner vacantly. “Yesh!” said Byers thickly, “my first wife--shelected and picked out fer your shecond wife--by your first--like d----d conundrum. How wash I t'know?” he said, with a sudden shriek of public expostulation--“thash what I wanter know. Here I come to talk with fr'en', like man to man, unshuspecting, innoshent as chile, about my shecond wife! Fr'en' drops out, carryin' off the whiskey. Then I hear all o' suddent voice o' Mary Ellen talkin' in kitchen; then I come round softly and see Mary Ellen--my wife as useter be--standin' at fr'en's kitchen winder. Then I lights out quicker 'n lightnin' and scoots! And when I gets back home, I ups and tells my wife. And whosh fault ish't! Who shaid a man oughter tell hish wife? You! Who keepsh other mensh' first wivesh at kishen winder to frighten 'em to tell? You!”