Patten gave a sort of screach.
"You don't think--oh Will, he's so tempermental. You don't
think he's drowned himself?"
"No such luck," said Mrs. Beecher, in a cold tone. I hated
her for it. True, he had decieved me. He was not as I had
thought him. In our to conversations he had not mentioned his
wife, leaveing me to beleive him free to love "where he listed,"
as the poet says.
"There are a few clues," said Mr. Patten. "He got out by
means of a wire hairpin, for one thing. And he took the
manuscript with him, which he'd hardly have done if he meant to
drown himself. Or even if, as we fear, he had no Pockets. He has
smoked a lot of cigarettes out of a candy box, which I did not
supply him, and he left behind a bath towle that does not, I
think, belong to us."
"I should think he would have worn it," said Mrs. Beecher,
in a scornfull tone.
"Here's the bath towle," Mr. Patten went on. "You may
recognize the initials. I don't."
"B. P. A.," said Mrs. Beecher. "Look here, don't they call
that--that fliberty-gibbet next door `Barbara'?"
"The little devil!" said Mr.
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