"Margot," I said, "haven't you ever committed a worse sin than that?"
She fell suddenly serious. It was several minutes before she replied.
"Yes, Arnold, I've been discontented and rebellious."
I looked out at the village street, at the uninteresting houses, at the glare of the "general store" where liquor was sold and where doubtless Col. Jennings, illumined by the moonshine whiskey of our mountains, was recounting to a bored audience of loafers some details of one of Stonewall Jackson's charges. It was needless to ask what it was that made her discontented, against what she had been rebellious. And the deadly torpor of that village life seemed to settle about me like a cloud of suffocating smoke. There sat beside me this fine spirited woman—useless. Her glorious potentiality of motherhood unused. Defrauded of her birth-right—wasted! I had an impulse to jump up and shake my fist at it all. I wanted to tell her that her greatest sin had been not to revolt more efficiently. But that would have been cruel now that her hair was so gray.
"Do you know who has helped me most?" she asked. "Your uncle. He is a saint, Arnold. We are great friends now. He came here one time when father was sick. He has been a wonderful comfort to me. Sometimes I go and call on him. He's very lonely. And he's such a gallant old gentleman. When I see him drive by in his buckboard I always wave to him and as soon as he's out of sight I go over to the house and scold the niggers. They would never do any work if somebody did not fuss them. And you know it makes me more contented to watch him. I say to myself that if such a wonderful man, so wise and learned can find plenty to do to serve the Master in this little village there must be quite enough for just a woman like me. There's a heap of comfort in that thought. But sometimes I read some story or think about you all out in the big world and it seems very small here—and lonely."
There was nothing I could think to say, so again we were silent.
"Arnold," she said suddenly. "Do you ever read King Arthur stories any more?"
"Whenever I get five minutes," I replied. "The people I live with have a little girl—Marie. I'm teaching them to her."
"I'm so glad—and Froissart?"
She went into the house and brought out the old soiled volume. We looked through it together and then she said that perhaps I would want to take it East for Marie. But I had a feeling that she wished to keep it. So I said Marie was too young for Froissart yet. Once more we fell silent. I remember the open book on her thin knees, her thin aristocratic hand between the pages, the profile of her face. Lamp-light shone out through the window upon her and she looked almost beautiful again.