Here was release—the man had another wife! He would drag the wretch down to her, and then give him to the police. No wonder he feared the police! The load was lifted at last—Butson’s punishment was come indeed! Fiercely glad, and thinking of nothing but this, Johnny swung into each room in turn. But there was no Butson. His pipe lay broken on the front bedroom fender, and his coat hung behind the door; but there was no other sign. Johnny dashed into the back yard. That, too, was empty. But in the yard behind, the old lighterman, paint-pot in one hand and brush in the other, just as he had broken off in the touching up of his mast, stood, and blinked, and stared, with his mouth open. His house-doors, back and front, stood wide, because of wet paint, and one could see through to the next street. It was by those doorways that Mr. Butson had vanished a minute ago, after scrambling over the wall, hatless, and in his shirt sleeves. And the old lighterman thought it a great liberty, and told Johnny so, with some dignity. Johnny rushed back to the shop. “Gone!” he cried. “Bolted out at the back!” He might have offered chase, but his mother lay in a swoon, and Bessy hung over her, hysterical. “Shove that woman out,” he said, and he and Hicks, between them, thrust the bawling termagant into the street and closed the door. Without, she raged still, and grew hoarser, till a policeman came to quiet her; and in the end she marched off with him, talking at a loud scream all the way. And Harbour Lane flamed with the news of Nan’s shameless bigamy. XXXII. LONG HICKS raved and tore at his hair, striding about the shop, and cursing himself with whatever words he could find. Johnny was excited still, but he grew thoughtful. There was more in this business, he saw now, than the mere happy riddance of Butson. What of the future? His mother was prostrated, and lay moaning on her bed. No one was there to tend her but Bessy, and there was no likelihood of help; they had no intimacy with neighbours, and indeed the stark morality of Harbour Lane womankind would have cut it off if they had. For already poor Nan was tried and condemned (as was the expeditious manner of Harbour Lane in such a matter), and no woman could dare so much as brush skirts with her. “It’s my fault—all of it!” said the unhappy Hicks. “I shouldn’t ’a’ bin such a fool! But how was I to know she’d go on like that, after what she’d agreed to? Oh, damme, I shouldn’t ’a’ meddled!” Johnny calmed him as well as he might, pulled him into a chair in the shop parlour, and sought to know the meaning of his self-reproaches. “Why not meddle?” Johnny asked. “When you found her kicking up that row—” “Ah, but I didn’t, I didn’t!” protested Hicks, rolling his head despairingly and punching his thigh. “I brought her here! It’s all my fault! I thought I was doin’ somethin’ clever, an’ I was silly fool! O, I’d like to shoot meself!”