Mary began to feel that she, too, was in danger of raving distraction.  Between her anxiety to hear the story and her forebodings and growing suspicions she was becoming more and more nervous as Isaiah rambled on.

“Wait!  Wait, please, Isaiah!” she begged.  “I don’t understand.  What had happened?”

Isaiah regarded her with surprise and impatience.

“Ain’t I been tellin’ you?” he snapped, testily.  “Ain’t I this minute told you?  This Ed Farmer had cleared out and run off and he’d took with him every cent of Hall and Company’s money that he could rake and scrape.  He’d been stealin’ and speculatin’ for years, it turned out.  ’Twas him, the dum thief, him and his stealin’s that made the firm fail.  Wan’t that enough to happen, I’d like to know?  But that wan’t all; no, sir, that wan’t the worst of it.”

He paused, evidently expecting his hearer to make some comment.  She was leaning forward, her eyes fixed upon his face, but she did not speak.  Mr. Chase, judging by her expression that he had created the sensation which, as story-teller, he considered his due, went on.

“No, sir-ee! that wan’t the worst of it.  You and me might have thought losin’ all our money was the worst that could be, but Marcellus and Shadrach didn’t think so.  Marcellus was pretty nigh stove in himself—­there was nothin’ on earth he loved the way he loved that sister of his—­but when he and Cap’n Shad thought of poor Zoeth they couldn’t think of much else.  Shadrach had liked her and Marcellus had loved her, but Zoeth had fairly bowed down and worshiped the ground she trod on.  Anything she wanted, no matter what, she could have if ’twas in Zoeth’s power to get it for her.  He’d humored her and spiled her as if she was a child and all he asked for doin’ it was that she’d pat him on the head once in a while, same as you would a dog.  And now she’d gone—­run off with that thief!  Why—­”

Mary interrupted again.  “Wait!  Wait, Isaiah,” she cried.  “I tell you I don’t understand.  You say—­you say Captain Hall’s sister had gone with Mr. Farmer?”

“Sartin! she run off with him and nobody’s laid eyes on either of ’em since.  That was why—­”

“Stop! stop!  What I don’t understand is why Uncle Zoeth was so stricken by the news.  Why had he humored and spoiled her?  Was he in love with her?”

Isaiah stared at her in blank astonishment.

“In love with her!” he repeated.  “Course he was!  Why wouldn’t he be?  Wan’t she his wife?”

There was no doubt about the sensation now.  The color slowly faded from Mary’s cheeks.

“His wife?” she repeated slowly.

“Sartin!  They’d been married ’most five year.  Didn’t I tell you?  She was a good deal younger’n he was, but—­”

“Wait!  What—­what was her name?”

“Eh?  Didn’t I tell you that neither?  That’s funny.  Her name was Patience—­Patience Hall.”

The last doubt was gone.  Clear and distinct to Mary’s mind came a sentence of Crawford’s:  “I saw her name first on the gravestone and it made an impression on me because it was so quaint and old-fashioned.  ‘Patience, wife of Edwin Smith.’”