THE POSSUM HUNTERS



would not find the "house intact," to mean that
he was moving his belongings away; his renuncia-
tion she regarded as belonging to the same spite-
ful class of literature she had written to him; she
gave little heed to any of his words save those
wherein he forgave her "everything, and wanted
to turn over a new leaf." But, now, when she
saw her "home" deserted and advertised for sale,
when she realized that "some of those cheap
neighbors" were peering at her from behind pro-
tecting window blinds, the truth rushed at her in
its full ugliness and she was unable to prevent
a display of emotions. Furiously she ran up the
front walk, up the steps, across the bare porch
floor, inserted her latch-key in the door lock and
threw the door open; on the threshold she stood
for a breathless second, then the horrid truth
broke in its huricane.  Echoes, dull mocking
echoes, vaulty echoes as from the tomb, resounded
through the deserted home; desertion was writ-
ten bold and gaunt; dust had settled as a pall, a
shroud; snarls of carpet yarn, torn bits of paper,
broken and discarded bits of worthless trinkets
littered the floor; naught save desolation.
                    
  Mrs. Easson was not slow in realizing that this
desertion was the result of some terrible tragedy
the action of which she had been kept in igno-
rance of. Surely her daughter had developed a
most erratic disposition since marriage, for
Hughes Randall was not the type of man to gross-
ly chastise an innocent wife. This was the re-
sult of a carefully thought out plan, a plan which
he could defend in a court of law, a plan of which
Caroline, no doubt, had been warned. She was
terribly grieved that, such scandal should occur,
but she was too thoroughly a "worldly wise"
woman to waste her moments in weeping. So
she entreated her daughter to cease her idle la-



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