Mrs. Bowles, too, chafed at the silence. Once or twice she visibly restrained herself. Then returning to her first impulse, she observed, “Teck don’t want ter know, Ben. Them ez he don’t like he jes’ won’t see nor hear, an’ it does him mighty nigh ez well ez ef they war dead. He knows somehow ez ’twar Jake Baintree ez hev been hyar this evenin’”— Jepson lifted his head. “Jake Baintree!” he ejaculated, in evident surprise. Mrs. Bowles rejoiced in her opportunity. “Yes, sir, ’twar Jake Baintree.” Her dark bead-like eyes flashed. She smiled flexibly; her white teeth glittered. “What call hed he ter kem hyar?” Jepson demanded, puzzled. “What call hedn’t he?” Mrs. Bowles retorted. “He be a free man! He travels the mountings whar his will leads him,—same ez a fox or a deer. He be ekal ter them dumb sinners, ennywise, I reckon, though he ain’t ’lowed ter git baptized.” She relapsed into silence, with an obvious satisfaction to have shot this arrow. She expected him to inquire further. But he only rose, looked on the rude shelf, that served as mantel-piece, for his pipe, filled it, scooped up a coal from the edge of the fire, and smoked thoughtfully, with no show of desire to hear more; and this stimulated infinitely Mrs. Bowles’s intention to continue the detail of the visit. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, gazed smilingly into the fire, apparently meditating on these things, and once she broke out “Waal, waal!” as if in reminiscent wonder and interest. Her husband, always alert to take an acceptable part, looked first at her, with her patent bid to be interrogated, and then at Jepson’s impassive and lofty face, with its proud indifference. He reflected that Jake Baintree was in one sense his half-brother’s enemy, and in another the object of his persecution, and he said nothing. Mrs. Bowles flushed with a dull red glow, but still persistently smiled and gazed into the fire; then shaking her head slowly and gently, she presently broke forth again:—