“Me?  Me?  Why, I belong here.  But you—­what in time sent you here?  Unless,” with returning suspicion, “you came because I—­”

He paused, warned by the expression on his caller’s face.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Nothin’.”

“Nothin’, I guess.  If you was flatterin’ yourself with the idea that I came here to chase after you, you never was more mistaken in your life, or ever will be.  You set down.  You and I have got to talk.  Set right down.”

The lightkeeper hesitated.  Then he obeyed orders by seating himself on an oil barrel lying on its side near the wall.  The lantern he placed on the floor at his feet.  Mrs. Bascom perched on one of the lower steps of the iron stairs.

“Now,” she said, “we’ve got to talk.  Seth Bascom—­”

Seth started violently.

“What is it?” asked the lady.  “Why did you jump like that?  Nobody comin’, is there?”

“No.  No . . .  But I couldn’t help jumpin’ when you called me that name.”

“That name?  It’s your name, isn’t it?  Oh,” she smiled slightly; “I remember now.  You’ve taken the name of Atkins since we saw each other last.”

“I didn’t take it; it belonged to me.  You know my middle name.  I just dropped the Bascom, that’s all.”

“I see.  Just as you dropped—­some other responsibilities.  Why didn’t you drop the whole christenin’ and start fresh?  Why did you hang on to ’Seth’?”

The lightkeeper looked guilty.  Mrs. Bascom’s smile broadened.  “I know,” she went on.  “You didn’t really like to drop it all.  It was too much of a thing to do on your hook, and there wasn’t anybody to tell you to do it, and so you couldn’t quite be spunky enough to—­”

He interrupted her.  “That wa’n’t the reason,” he said shortly.

“What was the reason?”

“You want to know, do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, the ‘Bascom’ part wa’n’t mine no more—­not all mine.  I’d given it to you.”

“O—­oh! oh, I see.  And you ran away from your name as you ran away from your wife.  I see.  And . . . why, of course! you came down here to run away from all the women.  Miss Ruth said this mornin’ she was told—­I don’t know who by—­that the lightkeeper was a woman-hater.  Are you the woman-hater, Seth?”

Mr. Atkins looked at the floor.  “Yes, I be,” he answered, sullenly.  “Do you wonder?”

“I don’t wonder at your runnin’ away; that I should have expected.  But there,” more briskly, “this ain’t gettin’ us anywhere.  You’re here—­and I’m here.  Now what’s your idea of the best thing to be done, under the circumstances?”

Seth shifted his feet.  “One of us better go somewheres else, if you ask me,” he declared.

“Run away again, you mean?  Well, I sha’n’t run away.  I’m Miss Ruth’s housekeeper for the summer.  I answered her advertisement in the Boston paper and we agreed as to wages and so on.  I like her and she likes me.  Course if I’d known my husband was in the neighborhood, I shouldn’t have come here; but I didn’t know it.  Now I’m here and I’ll stay my time out.  What are you goin’ to do?”