But Raven went on talking to him, telling him quietly and reasonably what they had judged it best to do, he and Nan. If Tira had wanted the baby buried over there by her mother, wouldn't she want to be buried there herself?
"Very well, then. We'll arrange things. The day after"—he could not bring himself to put the bare ceremonial that would see her out of the world into the words familiar to the country ear—"that will be the day. We shall go over. We'll take you with us."
"No," said Tenney, "you needn't trouble yourselves. I sha'n't go over there. Nor I sha'n't keep nobody else from goin'."
By this Raven judged he meant that he would not interfere with their seeing Tira out of the world in their own way. The man had repudiated her. It was a relief. It seemed to leave her, in her great freedom, the more free.
"Come down now," said Raven, "to my house. We'll have something to eat."
That was all he could think of, to keep the stricken creature within sound of human voices.
"I ain't hungry," said Tenney. "An' if I was"—here he stopped an instant and a spasm shot across his face—"she left me cooked up."
"All right," said Raven. "Then you go home now, and later in the day I'll come over and see if you've thought of anything else."
He believed the man should not, in his despairing frame of mind, be left alone. Tenney turned, without a look at him, and went off down the slope. Raven watched him round the curve. Then he took out the key from under the stone, remembering it need never be put there again, went in and locked the door. Suddenly he felt deadly sick. He went to the couch, lay down and closed his eyes on the blackness before them. If he had a wish, in this infinitude of desolation, it was that he might never open them again on the dark defiles of this world. It was dusk when he did open them, and for a minute he had difficulty in remembering why he was there and the blow that had struck him down to such a quivering apprehension of what was coming next. Then, before he quite found out, he learned what had waked him. There was a voice outside—Tenney's voice, only not Tenney's as he had known it—whimpering, begging in a wild humility:
"You there? You let me in. You there? For God's sake let me in."