An' she'd
a-done it, too, if it hadn't a' been for the children."
Captain Scraggs was fairly thunderin' his denunciation as he
concluded with: "You--you murderer! Ain't you ashamed of
yourself?"
Mr. Gibney, thoroughly crushed, hung his head. "If there was
kids, Scraggsy," he pleaded, "they wasn't mine, not that I knows
on."
"I ain't sayin' you don't speak the truth there, Gib. Maybe you
don't know that part of it, because you left before they was
born. Yes, sir, that gal had two twins--a boy an' a girl an' both
that white, when I see them as yearlings, you'd never suspect
they had a dab o' the tar-brush in 'em at all. The boy had red
hair--provin' he was yourn, Gib."
Mr. Gibney could stand no more. He sat down on the hatch coaming
and covered his face with his hard red hands. "If there was kids,
Scraggsy," he sobbed, "I didn't know it. I had everything else,
Scraggs, but heirs to my throne. Scraggsy, believe me or not, but
if I'd had children I'd have stuck by Pinky. I wouldn't desert my
own flesh an' blood, so help me."
"Well," Scraggs went on sorrowfully, "Pinky's dead an' so her
troubles is over. I heard some years ago she'd passed on with
consumption.
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