“Well,” she said with a sigh, “I guess I must go.  Good-by, Seth.”

The lightkeeper slowly rose to his feet.  “Emeline,” he stammered, “you ain’t goin’ without—­”

He stopped without finishing the sentence.  She waited a moment and then finished it for him.

“I’ll answer your question, if that’s what you mean,” she said.  “And the answer is no.  All things considered, I guess that’s best.”

“But Emeline, I—­I—­”

“Good-by, Seth.”

“Sha’n’t I,” desperately, “sha’n’t I see you again?”

“I expect to be around here for another day or so.  But I can’t see anythin’ to be gained by our meetin’.  Good-by.”

Taking her letter and those addressed to Miss Graham from the table she went out of the kitchen.  Seth followed her as far as the door, then turned and collapsed in the rocking-chair.

CHAPTER XIII

“John brown” Changes his name

“So we shall soon be together again as of old.  Your loving brother, Benjamin.”

The sentence which had met his eyes as he picked up the note which his caller had dropped was still before them, burned into his memory.  Benjamin!  “Bennie D.”! the loathed and feared and hated Bennie D., cause of all the Bascom matrimonial heartbreaks, had written to say that he and his sister-in-law were soon to be together as they used to be.  That meant that there had been no quarrel, but merely a temporary separation.  That she and he were still friendly.  That they had been in correspondence and that the “inventor” was coming back to take his old place as autocrat in the household with all his old influence over Emeline.  Seth’s new-found courage and manhood had vanished at the thought.  Bennie D.’s name had scarcely been mentioned during the various interviews between the lightkeeper and his wife.  She had said her first husband’s brother had been in New York for two years, and her manner of saying it led Seth to imagine a permanent separation following some sort of disagreement.  And now! and now!  He remembered Bennie D.’s superior airs, his polite sneers, his way of turning every trick to his advantage and of perverting and misrepresenting his, Seth’s, most innocent speech and action into crimes of the first magnitude.  He remembered the meaning of those last few months in the Cape Ann homestead.  All his fiery determination to be what he had once been—­Seth Bascom, the self-respecting man and husband—­collapsed and vanished.  He groaned in abject surrender.  He could not go through it again; he was afraid.  Of any other person on earth he would not have been, but the unexpected resurrection of Bennie D. made him a hesitating coward.  Therefore he was silent when his wife left him, and he realized that his opportunity was gone, gone forever.

In utter misery and self-hatred he sat, with his head in his hands, beside the kitchen table until eleven o’clock.  Then he rose, got dinner, and called Brown to eat it.  He ate nothing himself, saying that he’d lost his appetite somehow or other.  After the meal he harnessed Joshua to the little wagon and started on his drive to Eastboro.  “I’ll be back early, I cal’late,” were his last words as he drove out of the yard.