'Make yourself easy,' said the Carrier. 'He went into that room
last night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has
entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I'd go out
gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for
life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he
has come and gone. And I have done with him!'

'Oh!--Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,' said Tackleton,
taking a chair.

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded
his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.

'You showed me last night,' he said at length, 'my wife; my wife
that I love; secretly--'

'And tenderly,' insinuated Tackleton.

'Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of
meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I wouldn't have rather
seen than that. I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't
have rather had to show it me.'

'I confess to having had my suspicions always,' said Tackleton.
'And that has made me objectionable here, I know.'

'But as you did show it me,' pursued the Carrier, not minding him;
'and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love'--his voice, and
eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: