"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the window's open. I don't see any marks--to be sure it's almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been some--some scuffle. Eh?" He nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether; he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him. "Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me; and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I'd go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done with him!" "Oh!--Well, I think he has got off pretty easily," said Tackleton, taking a chair. The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too: and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding. "You showed me last night," he said at length, "my wife; my wife that I love; secretly--" "And tenderly," insinuated Tackleton. "Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I wouldn't have rather seen than that. I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't have rather had to show it me." "I confess to having had my suspicions always," said Tackleton. "And that has made me objectionable here, I know." "But as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier, not minding him; "and as you saw her; my wife; my wife that I love"--his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in pursuance of a stedfast purpose--"as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is, upon the subject. For it's settled," said the Carrier, regarding him attentively. "And nothing can shake it now." Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous Honor dwelling in the man, could have imparted. "I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier, "with very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father's house; because I knew how precious she was; because she had been my Life, for years and years. There's many men I can't compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I think!" He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before resuming: