Wilbur Cowan again surveyed the office, and again peered sharply in at Sam Pickering.  His first wild thought was that Sam had descended to a practical joke.  If so it was a tasteless proceeding.  But he must be game.  It was surely a joke, and Sam and the others in the office would be watching him for signs of anguish.  His machine steadily clicked off the item.  He struck not one wrong letter.  He hung the sheet of copy on its hook and waited for the explosion of crude humour.  He felt that his impassive demeanour had foiled the mean intention.  But no one regarded him.  Sam Pickering wrote on.  Terry Stamper stolidly ran off cards on the job press.  They were all indifferent.  Something told him it was not a joke.

He finished the next sheet of copy.  Then, when he was certain he had not been jested with, he rose from the torturing machine, put on his coat, and told Sam Pickering he had an engagement.  Sam hoped it wouldn’t keep him from work that afternoon.

Wilbur said “Possibly not,” though he knew he would now loathe the linotype forever.

“By the way”—­he managed it jauntily, as Sam bent again over his pad of yellow copy paper—­“I see Lyme Teaford’s name is going to be in print this week.”

Sam paused in his labour and chuckled.

“Yes, the old hard-shell is landed.  That blonde hasn’t been bringing him his three meals a day all this time for nothing.”

“She must have married him for his money,” Wilbur heard himself saying in cold, cynical tones.  The illumining thought had just come.  That explained it.

“Sure,” agreed Sam.  “Why wouldn’t she?”

* * * * *

Late that afternoon, in the humble gymnasium at the rear of Pegleg McCarron’s, Spike Brennon emerged from a rally in which Wilbur Cowan had displayed unaccustomed spirit.  Spike tenderly caressed his nose with a glove and tried to look down upon it.  The swelling already showed to his oblique gaze.

“Say, kid,” he demanded, irritably, “what’s the big idea?  Is this murder or jest a friendly bout?  You better behave or I’ll stop pullin’ my punches.”

It could not be explained to the aggrieved Spike that his opponent had for the moment convinced himself that he faced one of Newbern’s best-known business men.

Later he contented himself with observing Lyman Teaford at Niagara Falls.  The fatuous groom stood heedlessly at the cataract’s verge.  There was a simple push, and the world was suddenly a better place to live in.  As for his bereaved mate—­he meditated her destruction, also, but this was too summary.  It came to him that she had been a lovely and helpless victim of circumstances.  For he had stayed on with Spike through the evening, and in a dearth of custom Spike, back of the bar, had sung in a whining tenor, “For she’s only a bird in a gilded cage——­”

That was it.  She had discarded him because he was penniless—­had sold herself to be a rich man’s toy.  She would pay for it in bitter anguish.