“Yes, I be.” Seth did not ask what Bennie D. was doing there. Already
that question was settled in his mind. The brother-in-law had found
out that Emeline was living next door to the man she married, that her
summer engagement was over, and he had come to take her away.
“Well?” queried the inventor sharply, “if you haven't followed me, what
are you doing here? What do you mean by being here?”
“I belong here,” desperately. “I work here.”
“You do? And may I ask what particular being is fortunate enough to
employ you?”
“I'm keeper down to the lighthouses, if you want to know. But I cal'late
you know it already.”
Bennie D.'s coolness was not proof against this. He started.
“The lighthouses?” he repeated. “The--what is it they call them?--the
Twin-Lights?”
“Yes. You know it; what's the use of askin' fool questions?”
The inventor had not known it--until that moment, and he took time to
consider before making another remark. His sister-in-law was employed as
housekeeper at some bungalow or other situated in close proximity to
the Twin-Lights; that he had discovered since his arrival on the morning
train. Prior to that he had known only that she was in Eastboro for
the summer. Before that he had not been particularly interested in her
location. Since the day, two years past, when, having decided that he
had used her and her rapidly depleting supply of cash as long as was
safe or convenient, he had unceremoniously left her and gone to New
York to live upon money supplied by a credulous city gentleman, whom his
smooth tongue had interested in his “inventions,” he had not taken the
trouble even to write to Emeline. But within the present month the New
Yorker's credulity and his “loans” had ceased to be material assets.
Then Bennie D., face to face with the need of funds, remembered his
sister and the promise given his dead brother that he should be provided
with a home as long as she had one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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