“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed Madame.
“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t lie on her road home from Union Mills, do it? I stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was talkin’ if they hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow, but we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe she’d ha’ been killed in the shootin’. Yer can’t never say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’ like blazes. I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys was ’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell yer we done our best for yer.”
They thanked him, and he went his way.
“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will be coming home to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. “Poor Ezra! What a home-coming!”
Brother Green remained silent for a long time, then he spoke again in a soft low voice, almost as if he was communing with himself.
“When I laid my young wife in her grave with her babe on her breast, fifteen years ago last Midsummer, I thought I had known the greatest sorrow possible to the human heart. But my loss was not so great as Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim, and oh, how bitter! How great a power of suffering lies in the human heart!”
“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,” said Madame to him in reply.
“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may very well embitter. People talk of the purifying by sorrow. It seems to me that happiness can purify too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow in this world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes to a man. Brother Ezra was happy, is happy, poor man, since he does not yet know of the wreck of his home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she, poor young thing, my heart aches for her! She was in my forge the other day, said she was lonesome and came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going to see her, instead of merely remembering how bright she was in the forge. We should have looked after her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the chief.” Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it, that immensely surprised Madame in her self-contained calm.
“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely no control over her, and no influence. She was one of the most determined young women I ever knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of others.”
“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said Brother Green.