his attention wholly to his companion in time to save his
great-grandfather from utter condemnation.

"What's eating you, Ford?" he began pacifically--for Sandy was a
weakling. "You might be a lot worse off. You're married, all right
enough, from all I c'n hear--but she's left town. It ain't as if you had
to live with her."

Ford looked at him a minute and groaned dismally.

"Oh, I ain't meaning anything against the lady herself," Sandy hastened
to assure him. "Far as I know, she's all right--"

"What I want to know," Ford broke in, impatient of condolence when he
needed facts, "is, who _is_ she? And what did I go and marry her for?"

"Well, you'll have to ask somebody that knows. I never seen her, myself,
except when you was leadin' her down to the depot, and you and her
talked it over private like--the way I heard it. I was gitting a
hair-cut and shampoo at the time. First I heard, you was married. I
should think you'd remember it yourself." Sandy looked at Ford
curiously.

"I kinda remember standing up and holding hands with some woman and
somebody saying: 'I now pronounce you man and wife,'" Ford confessed
miserably, his face in his hands again. "I guess I must have done it,
all right."

Sandy was kind enough when not otherwise engaged. He got up and put a
basin of water on the stove to warm, that Ford might bathe his hurts,