"
"It's false! She had some poor stranger here with a lame horse. She told
me so herself."
Jane Mackinnon laughed shrilly.
"Did she tell you that the poor stranger was young and pretty-faced,
with black moustarches? that his store clothes must have cost a fortin,
saying nothing of his gold-lined, broadcloth sarrapper? Did she say that
his horse was so lame that when I went to get another he wouldn't WAIT
for it? Did she tell you WHO he was?"
"No, she did not know," said Rylands sternly, but with a whitening face.
"Well, I'll tell you! The gambler, the shooter!--the man whose name
is black enough to stain any woman he knows. Jim recognized him like
a shot; he sez, the moment he clapped eyes on him at the door, 'Dod
blasted, if it ain't Jack Hamlin!'"
Little as Mr. Rylands knew of the world, he had heard that name. But it
was not THAT he was thinking of. He was thinking of the camp-fire in the
wood, the handsome figure before it, the tethered horse. He was thinking
of the lighted sitting-room, the fire, his wife's bare shoulders, her
slippers, stockings, and the dance.
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