pay for yer dinner first," he said submissively, but firmly, "and make
yer remarks agin the food arter."

The stranger flushed quickly, and his eye took an additional shade of
red, but meeting Abner's serious gray ones, he contented himself with
ostentatiously taking out a handful of gold and silver and paying his
bill. Abner passed on, but after dinner was over he found the stranger
in the hall.

"Ye pulled me up rather short in thar," said the man gloomily, "but it's
just as well, as the talk I was wantin' with ye was kinder betwixt and
between ourselves, and not hotel business. My name's Byers, and my wife
let on she met ye down here."

For the first time it struck Abner as incongruous that another man
should call Rosalie "his wife," although the fact of her remarriage
had been made sufficiently plain to him. He accepted it as he would an
earthquake, or any other dislocation, with his usual tolerant smile, and
held out his hand.

Mr. Byers took it, seemingly mollified, and yet inwardly
disturbed,--more even than was customary in Abner's guests after dinner.

"Have a drink with me," he suggested, although it had struck him that
Mr. Byers had been drinking before dinner.

"I'm agreeable," responded Byers promptly; "but," with a glance at the
crowded bar-room, "couldn't we go somewhere, jest you and me, and have a
quiet confab?"