'Whatever I shall tell her'--so ran the ingenuous current of his thoughts--'I must not let out that I am going to pass for an independent gentleman, for, of course, she would like to have her share in a game of that kind, and why shouldn't she?' 'I don't understand it plain enough yet, Eph,' she said; and Eph knew the resolute ring in the voice, quite free from temper, but meaning him to mind it. 'You must be more distinct, please. And I should like you to tell me how it is that you and this Warren have turned friends again. I never knew much about your quarrel or how you were mixed up with him at first; but it seems to me, considering he wouldn't answer your letters or see you or help you to get anything to do for some time back, he must have some very strong reason for changing round all of a sudden, and putting you into a thing which must want management and must mean confidence.' 'Ain't she shrewd!' thought Jenkins rather admiringly, though his wife's shrewdness bothered him just then; 'goes straight at it and hits it in the hull's-eye.' And then he formed a resolution. 'You are quite right, Bess,' he replied. 'I am sure his reason is a very strong one, only I don't know it, and it don't matter to me, for I am safe to get paid, and you see that's the chief thing, and I'm sure you'll allow--and there's the queerest tricks going on in business, tricks that would make you stare to hear of and you could hardly believe. If there is any such tricks up in this game, you understand, it's Warren will be playing them, not me, and they don't concern me; and you may take your oath Warren knows what he's about. But I am going to tell you something, Bess, which I have not told you before, just because we have always had enough trouble to get along, and a big share of it has been yours, my girl, and I did not want to make it bigger by giving things a look of greater hardship and blacker injustice than they need have; but I can't go on without telling you now, Bess, when you ask me how it comes that Warren has changed his mind and his hand about me. You know he is not aware of your existence!' 'Yes,' Bess replied anxiously, 'I know you thought it better he should not know you were married.' 'I had my reasons. Long ago, Warren said to me he would never get me another job, or help me with another cent, if I mixed myself up in any affair with a woman. I have no doubt he did not mean by that if I married, for he never thought of such a thing, but he just said that, and he meant it. "He would not have any woman told anything about his affairs," he said, "and I had better act on the caution."