"She had some money,--not much, but her own. I wanted it. Then I stopped to think. This engine seemed like a greedy devil swallowing everything. Another step, and she was penniless, ruined: common sense told me that. And I loved her,--well enough to see how my work came between us every hour, made me cruel to her, kept her wretched. If I were gone, she would be better off. I said that to myself day after day. I used to finger the bonds of that money, thinking how it would enable me to finish all I had to do. She wanted me to take it. I knew some day I should do it." "Did you?" "No,"--his face clearing. "I was not altogether lost, I think. I left her, settling it on herself. Then I was out of temptation. But I deceived her: I said I was tired of married life, wished to give myself to my work. Then I left her." "What did she say?" "She? Nothing that I remember. 'As thee will, Joseph,' that was all, if anything. She had suspected it a long time. If I had stayed with her, I should have used that money,"--his fingers working with his white whiskers. "I've been near starving sometimes since. So I saved her from that,"--looking steadily at the Doctor, when he had finished speaking, but as if he did not see him. "But your wife? Have you never seen her since?" "Once." He spoke with difficulty now, but the clergyman suffered him to go on. "I don't know where she is now. I saw her once in the Fulton ferry-boat at New York; she had grown suddenly old and hard. She did not see me. I never thought she could grow so old as that. But I did what I could. I saved her from my life." Dr. Bowdler looked into the man's eyes as a physician might look at a cancer. "Since then you have not seen her, I understand you? Not wished to see her?" There was a moment's pause. "I have told you the facts of my life, Sir," said the old machinist, with a bow, his stubbly gray hair seeming to stand more erect; "the rest is of trifling interest." Dr. Bowdler colored. "Don't be unjust to me, my friend," he said, kindly. "I meant well." There had been some shuffling noises in the next room in the half-hour just past, which the Doctor had heard uneasily, raising his voice each time to stifle the sound. A servant came to the door now, beckoning him out. As he went, Starke watched him from under his bushy brows, smiling, when he turned and apologized for leaving him. That man was a thorough man, of good steel. What an infinite patience there was in his voice! He was glad he had told him so much; he breathed freer himself for it. But he was not going to whine. Whatever pain had been in his life he had left out of that account. What right had any man to know what his wife was to him? Other men had given up home and friends and wife for the truth's sake, and not whimpered over it.