They were never apart, and they loathed each other.
Louis regarded young Owen as an interloper, and acted towards him as
boys and tigers will towards interlopers weaker than themselves. The
mischief was that Owen, in course of years, became a great favourite
with his step-father. This roused Louis to a fury which was the more
dangerous in that Owen had begun to overtake him in strength, and the
fury could, therefore, find no outlet. Then Owen's mother died, and
Ravengar, senior, married again--a girl this time, who soon discovered
that the household in which she had planted herself was far too
bellicose to be comfortable. She abandoned her husband, and sought
consolation and sympathy with another widower, who also was blessed with
offspring. Such is the foolishness of women. You cannot cure a woman of
being one. But it must be said in favour of the third Mrs. Ravengar and
her consoler that they conducted their affair with praiseworthy
attention to outward decency. She went to America by one steamer, and
purchased a divorce in Iowa for two hundred dollars. He followed in the
next steamer, and they were duly united in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, the
Ravengar household, left to the ungoverned passions of three males,
became more and more impossible, and at length old Ravengar expired.
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