Sufficient to announce, they were married and lived unhappily ever afterward.
Their only son was killed by a runaway horse when he was twenty, and their daughter became the wife of an American named Browne when she was scarcely out of her teens.

It was then that Mr.Skaggs, practically childless, determined to make himself wifeless as well.
He magnanimously deeded the unentailed farm to his wife, turned his securities into cash and then set forth upon a voyage of exploration.

It is common history that upon one dark, still night in December he said good-bye forever to the farm and its mistress; but it is doubtful if either of them heard him.
To be "jolly well even" with him, Mrs.Skaggs did a most priggish thing.
She died six months later.

But, before doing so, she made a will in which she left the entire estate to her daughter, effectually depriving the absent husband of any chance to reclaim his own.
Taswell Skaggs was in Shanghai when he heard the news.

It was on a Friday.