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Rh, I mean.—Say, she would n't give you hell-room, honest.—Dunno why, but," he added with malice, "she's a fine judge o' men. Knows me like a book."

"That's enough," said Marden savagely. "You 'll mention her no more in this house, do you hear?"

"Jealous, huh?" chuckled the sailor.

"Shut your head," said his brother.

He was obeyed. Not only for that evening, but from then on, they exchanged no further word of Barclay's Bess. But Lee, imagining himself the cause of a bitter jealousy, so gloried in himself as a dramatic figure that he became generous, after his fashion. True, there came a period of great sullenness that October, when he had been away for three days, and came back old and transformed, with the white stubble covering his face, and his nose broken, and a bloody cheekbone. He had the doctor in to set his nose. Marden paid for it. Meantime the village rang with the saga of a fight in the hawthorn lane on the Barclay farm between Bat Sebright and the old red-bearded Viking. And for a fortnight