"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. Patten, in a raging tone. "She let him out,
and of course he's done no work on the Play or anything. I'd like to
choke her."

Nobody spoke then, and my heart beat fast and hard. I leave it to
anybody, how they'd like to be shut in a closet and threatened with a
violent Death from without. Would or would they not ever be the same
person afterwards?