Seth gazed straight ahead into the blackness.

He swallowed once or twice, and his hands tightened on the spokes of the wheel.
"That--that feller there," nodding grimly toward the groaning figure at the pumps, "told me himself that him and you had agreed to get a divorce from me--to get it right off.

He give me to understand that you expected him, 'twas all settled and that was why he'd come to Eastboro.

That's what he told me this afternoon on the depot platform." Mrs.Bascom again sprang up.
"Set down!" commanded Seth.
"I won't." "Yes, you will.

Set down." And she did.
"Seth," she cried, "did he--did Bennie tell you that?
Did he?
Why, I never heard such a--I never! Seth, it ain't true, not a word of it.