“She’s a real good girl, and I can’t help but feel, ef she could let me at her wedding dance, set alone with her waitin’ till Jarlsen come, that I owe it to her to marry her, and I think when she’s worn out her mourning thet she’d be agreeable. He was a queer fellow; hed them fancy virtues thet prevents a man from making a good husband jest as sure as his havin’ the vices would. He give his money to lame-legged and blind-eyed, and thet’s keepin’ it from wifie jest es much es if he give it up for drink.” A woman’s voice answered him in full assent: “You’ll not be the only one to marry her, though; she’s got money now, and a rare head for livin’ straight.” Emma had not seen the woman, but guessed it must be one of those who “wrought” in the offices of the plant, writing, or sorting the mass of mail. Excepting herself Quarry rarely spoke to any one of less class among the women. She was very angry, and could see how Quarry had used it all in his talk; all the circumstances of her courtship he could twist into evidence that she had loved nothing of Jarlsen but what he had left her. She could hear the woman’s opinion that her conduct was not quite right, uttered in the dry tone she used when speaking of her straight life. She said to herself just as fiercely as ever that Quarry was a liar, but she felt that happiness had given her the power to fight him, and now her happiness was gone. She remembered with a dim horror that Quarry had resumed a practice, since Jarlsen’s mishap, that she hoped her engagement had ended. Up to the day that they had spoken of their marriage publicly, Quarry would take things into his hands that Emma had lately touched and fondle them. He had done so again the day of the blast rite, she remembered. She had intended to revel in her grief at chapel that morning, and Quarry had divined her intention. She meant to stand in the singing, as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when the preacher shivered and scowled and beat the reading-desk with his fists. She would not go now. She felt that no one would believe that she mourned for him if Quarry had been talking about her very much in the way she had heard. She burned to speak with him of the traitor’s part he had played. It was as usual in Soot City as in other places for folks to bethink themselves of the church when trouble thwarts them; and so every one went to church expecting Emma. And Quarry’s tongue was not quite long enough to have reached the general ear in so short a time. The congregation was very large, and the flattered minister observed Emma’s absence with satisfaction. He never thought that his hearers could have been ignorant of her intention to stay at home, and supposed that in the sudden calamity come upon the town they had found a warning anent churchless ways. He announced an extra service at three in the afternoon, and the only person who answered it was Jeremy Black’s foreman, who came to protest.