"I thought she was your widow. I meant—she'd never married again."
"Well, she never was my wife, though she'd promised to be. She was comin' out to me in Canada; and all of a sudden she wrote and chucked me. Said she was goin' to marry another feller, and I shouldn't never hear from her agen. That hit hard, I can tell 'ee— it did, farmer. I cared a lot for Molly."
Other questions were thronging on Farmer Paine.
"Molly went to Canada," he said; and his fine rugged face had grown hard. "If she didn't go to you, what did she go for?"
A moment's silence.
"Who was it you married, Molly,—if it wasn't Phil Morris?"
Mrs. Morris spoke stolidly, one hand still folded neatly over the other.
"It was another man," she said. "I came across him; and I found I didn't care for Phil. I'd thought I did, and I didn't. It was the other I cared for—not him. He was a bit above me—a gentlemen out and out—and he didn't want his folks to know about me being his wife— he didn't want the fuss there'd be. So I just kept it secret, and let nobody know. It didn't matter to other people."
"It mattered to me," the farmer said, his voice grieved and hoarse. "It mattered to me and my wife. And you took us in too."
"Yes. It had to be, uncle."