Well, the man--the brute--he left her when she got ill--but yes, forsook her absolutely! He was a land-agent or something like that, and all very fine to your face, to promise and to pretend--just make-believe.

When her sickness got worse, off he went with 'Au revoir, my dear--I will be back to supper.' Supper! If she'd waited for her supper till he came back, she'd have waited as long as I've done for the fortune the gipsy promised me forty years ago.

Away he went, the rogue, without a thought of her, and with another woman.

That's what hurt her most of all.

Straight from her that could hardly drag herself about--ah, yes, and has been as handsome a woman as ever was!--straight from her he went to a slut.