The shock—­the grasp—­perhaps Abner’s words, momentarily silenced Byers.  “Did I strike her?” he said dazedly; “did I abuse her?  Oh, yes!” with deep irony.  “Certainly!  In course!  Look yer, pardner!”—­he suddenly dragged up his sleeve from his red, hairy arm, exposing a blue cicatrix in its centre—­“that’s a jab from her scissors about three months ago; look yer!”—­he bent his head and showed a scar along the scalp—­“that’s her playfulness with a fire shovel!  Look yer!”—­he quickly opened his collar, where his neck and cheek were striped and crossed with adhesive plaster—­“that’s all that was left o’ a glass jar o’ preserves—­the preserves got away, but some of the glass got stuck!  That’s when she heard I was a di-vorced man and hadn’t told her.”

“Were you a di-vorced man?” gasped Abner.

“You know that; in course I was,” said Byers scornfully; “d’ye meanter say she didn’t tell ye?”

“She?” echoed Abner vaguely.  “Your wife—­you said just now she didn’t know it before.”

“My wife ez oncet was, I mean!  Mary Ellen—­your wife ez is to be,” said Byers, with deep irony.  “Oh, come now.  Pretend ye don’t know!  Hi there!  Hands off!  Don’t strike a man when he’s down, like I am.”

But Abner’s clutch of Byers’s shoulder relaxed, and he sank down to a sitting posture on the root.  In the meantime Byers, overcome by a sense of this new misery added to his manifold grievances, gave way to maudlin silent tears.

“Mary Ellen—­your first wife?” repeated Abner vacantly.

“Yesh!” said Byers thickly, “my first wife—­shelected and picked out fer your shecond wife—­by your first—­like d——­d conundrum.  How wash I t’know?” he said, with a sudden shriek of public expostulation—­“thash what I wanter know.  Here I come to talk with fr’en’, like man to man, unshuspecting, innoshent as chile, about my shecond wife!  Fr’en’ drops out, carryin’ off the whiskey.  Then I hear all o’ suddent voice o’ Mary Ellen talkin’ in kitchen; then I come round softly and see Mary Ellen—­my wife as useter be—­standin’ at fr’en’s kitchen winder.  Then I lights out quicker ‘n lightnin’ and scoots!  And when I gets back home, I ups and tells my wife.  And whosh fault ish’t!  Who shaid a man oughter tell hish wife?  You!  Who keepsh other mensh’ first wivesh at kishen winder to frighten ’em to tell?  You!”

But a change had already come over the face of Abner Langworthy.  The anger, anxiety, astonishment, and vacuity that was there had vanished, and he looked up with his usual resigned acceptance of the inevitable as he said, “I reckon that’s so!  And seein’ it’s so,” with good-natured tolerance, he added, “I reckon I’ll break rules for oncet and stand ye another drink.”