Mrs. Bascom hesitated.  “It was all an accident, Seth,” she explained.  “This has been an awful night—­and day.  Bennie and I was out ridin’ together, and we took the wrong road.  We got lost, and the rain was awful.  We got out of the buggy to stand under some trees where ’twas drier.  The horse got scared at some limbs fallin’ and run off.  Then it was most dark, and we got down to the shore and saw this boat.  There wa’n’t any water round her then.  Bennie, he climbed aboard and said the cabin was dry, so we went into it to wait for the storm to let up.  But it kept gettin’ worse.  When we came out of the cabin it was all fog like this and water everywhere.  Bennie was afraid to wade, for we couldn’t see the shore, so we went back into the cabin again.  And then, all at once, there was a bump that knocked us both sprawlin’.  The lantern went out, and when we come on deck we were afloat.  It was terrible.  And then—­and then you came, Seth, and saved our lives.”

“Humph!  Maybe they ain’t saved yet. . . .  Emeline, where was you drivin’ to?”

“Why, we was drivin’ home, or thought we was.”

“Home?”

“Yes, home—­back to the bungalow.”

“You was?”

“Yes.”

A pause.  Then:  “Emeline, there’s no use your tellin’ me what ain’t so.  I know more than you think I do, maybe.  If you was drivin’ home why did you take the Denboro road?”

“The Denboro road?  Why, we only went on that a ways.  Then we turned off on what we thought was the road to the Lights.  But it wa’n’t; it must have been the other, the one that goes along by the edge of the Back Harbor and the Slough, the one that’s hardly ever used.  Seth,” indignantly, “what do you mean by sayin’ that I told you what wa’n’t so?  Do you think I lie?”

“No.  No more than you thought I lied about that Christy critter.”

“Seth, I was always sorry for that.  I knew you didn’t lie.  At least I ought to have known you didn’t.  I—­”

“Wait.  What did you take the Denboro road at all for?”

“Why—­why—­Well, Seth, I’ll tell you.  Bennie wanted to talk to me.  He had come on purpose to see me, and he wanted me to do somethin’ that—­that . . .  Anyhow, he’d come to see me.  I didn’t know he was comin’.  I hadn’t heard from him for two years.  That letter I got this—­yesterday mornin’ was from him, and it most knocked me over.”

“You hadn’t heard from him?  Ain’t he been writin’ you right along?”

“No.  The fact is he left me two years ago without even sayin’ good-by, and—­and I thought he had gone for good.  But he hadn’t,” with a sigh, “he hadn’t.  And he wanted to talk with me.  That’s why he took the other road—­so’s he’d have more time to talk, I s’pose.”

“Humph!  Emeline, answer me true:  Wa’n’t you goin’ to Denboro to get—­to get a divorce from me?”

“A divorce?  A divorce from you?  Seth Bascom, I never heard such—­”