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 and every one thought it was a good match. But he died—three weeks ago—while you were on the ocean, leaving her with two small children. They've some money, but not very much. The Watts house was sold when old Watts died—to pay his debts. She's living with Conyngham's sister, who's quite well off. They're in the old Stuart house in Park Avenue. Old Stuart lost all his money hanging on to too much land, so they bought the house off him. I guess Conyngham wasn't a very good husband—I used to see his bicycle sitting in front of Mamie Rhodes' house. There couldn't have been much good in that—men like Mamie Rhodes too well."

She knew it all, the story in all its details, even to Mamie Rhodes, at whose name women in the Town were wont to bristle. No one knew anything about Mamie: it was just that she was much too young for her years, and did something to men—nobody knew just what it was—that made her very popular.

"And what was he like?" asked Philip.

"Conyngham," said Emma, "John Conyngham? He was handsome, but I never liked his looks. I'd never trust a man that looked like that."

What she meant was that there was something about John Conyngham that reminded her of the derelict Mr. Downes, and that the sight of him had always disturbed her in a terrifying way. She couldn't bear to look at him.

"He died of pneumonia," she said above the clatter of the dishes and the prosperous banging of the cash-register. "They say he caught it coming home in the rain from Mamie Rhodes' on Thanksgiving night."

Philip listened and the dull red still burned under