"Why, don't you know?" said he. "'Ain't nobody told ye? She 'ain't got
no husband."

"What? Is the Cap'n dead?"

"Dead? Bless ye, he's divorced from Nancy, an' married another woman,
two year ago come this May!"

I was amazed, and Hiram looked at me with the undisguised triumph of
one who has news to sell, be it good or bad.

"But Nancy has written me!" I said. "She told me the neighborhood
gossip; why didn't she tell me that?"

"Pride, I s'pose, pride," said Hiram. "You can't be sure how misery'll
strike folks. It's like a September gale; the best o' barns'll blow
down, an' some rickety shanty'll stan' the strain. But there! Nancy's
had more to bear from the way she took her troubles than from the
troubles themselves. Ye see, 'twas this way. Cap'n Jim had his own
reasons for wantin' to git rid of her, an' I guess there was a time
when he treated her pretty bad. I guess he as good's turned her out o'
house an' home, an' when he sued for divorce for desertion, she never
said a word; an' he got it, an' up an' married, as soon as the law'd
allow, Nancy never opened her head, all through it. She jest settled
down, with a bed an' a chair or two, in that little house she owned
down by Wilier Brook, an' took in tailorin' an' mendin'. One spell, she
bound shoes. The whole town was with her till she begun carryin' on
like a crazed creatur', as she did arterwards."