"Ef the colonel kills Flash, Mrs.Tretherick is avenged: if Flash drops the colonel, Tretherick is all right.

Either way, he's got a sure thing." During this delicate condition of affairs, Mrs.Tretherick one day left her husband's home and took refuge at the Fiddletown Hotel, with only the clothes she had on her back.

Here she staid for several weeks, during which period it is only justice to say that she bore herself with the strictest propriety.
It was a clear morning in early spring that Mrs.Tretherick, unattended, left the hotel, and walked down the narrow street toward the fringe of dark pines which indicated the extreme limits of Fiddletown.

The few loungers at that early hour were preoccupied with the departure of the Wingdown coach at the other extremity of the street; and Mrs.Tretherick reached the suburbs of the settlement without discomposing observation.
Here she took a cross street or road, running at right angles with the main thoroughfare of Fiddletown and passing through a belt of woodland.
It was evidently the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of the town.

The dwellings were few, ambitious, and uninterrupted by shops.