"He was all right, as nice a man as you could find before _she_ came to Peory. You see she is married to another man, a baker, and they lived in Decatur. Ducharme--he's a Frenchman--knew her in Decatur where he worked in a restaurant, and he came to Peory to get rid of her. And he got a job and was real steady and quiet. Then we got married, and Ducharme was as nice a man as you ever knew. But we wasn't married a week--we had a kafe together--before _she_ got wind o' his being married and come to town. He told me she was trying to get him to go away, and he said how he didn't want to; but she had influence with him and was worrying around. Well, the third day he sent me a note by a little boy. 'Caroline,' it said, 'you'se a good woman and an honest woman and we could get on first rate together; but, Caroline, I don't love you when she is about. She calls me, and I go.'" "Well, that's all there is to it, isn't it?" Sommers asked, half amused. "You can't keep him away from the other woman. Now you are a sensible, capable woman. Just give him up and find a place to work." Mrs. Ducharme shook her head sorrowfully. "That won't do. I just think and think, and I can't work. He was such a nice man, so gentlemanlike and quiet, so long as she stayed away. But I didn't tell you: I found 'em in Peory in a place not fit for hogs to live in, and I watched my chance and gave it to the woman. But Ducharme came in and he pushed me out, and I fell, and guess I cracked my head. That's when my eye began to hurt. The kafe business ran out, and I followed them to Chicago. And here I been for three months, doing most anything, housework generally. But I can't keep a place. Just so often I have to up and out on the road and try to find him. I'll brain that woman yet!" She uttered this last assertion tranquilly. "She don't amount to much,--a measly, sandy-haired, cheap thing. _I_ come of respectable folks, who had a farm outer Gales City, and never worked out 'fore this happened. But now I can't settle down to nothin'; it's always that Frenchman before my eyes, and _her_." "Well, and after you have found her and disposed of her?" asked Sommers. "Oh, Ducharme will be all right then! He'll follow me like a lamb. He doesn't want to mess around with such. But she's got some power over him." "Simply he wants to live with her and not with you." The woman nodded her head sadly. "I guess that's about it; but you see if she weren't around, he wouldn't know that he didn't love me."