“You’re spilling the ashes,” she said. “Here, let me.”
She would have taken the broom from him, but Evered would not let it go. He looked toward her as they held the broom between them, and there was in his eyes such an agony of desire to please her that the girl had to turn away.
What was moving in Evered’s mind it is hard to say, hard to put in words. He had not yet surrendered to regret for the thing he had done; he was still able to bolster his courage, to strengthen himself by the reflection that his wife had wronged him. He was still able to fan to life the embers of his rage against her and against Semler. Yet the man was finding it hard to endure the hatred in Ruth’s eyes, the silent glances which met him when he went abroad, the ostracism of the village. He wanted comradeship in these days as he had never wanted it before. He desired the friendship of mankind; he desired, in an unformed way, the affection of Ruth. The girl had come to symbolize in his thoughts something like his own conscience. He was uncertainly conscious that if she forgave him, looked kindly upon him, bore him no more malice, he might altogether forgive himself for that which he had done.
Yet when he put this thought in words it evoked a revolt in his own heart; and he would cry out to himself, “I need no forgiveness! I’ve nothing to forgive! I was right to let the bull.... She was false as a witch; false as hell!”
He found poor comfort in this thought. So long as he believed his wife was guilty he could endure the torment of his own remorse, could relieve the pain of it. And if Ruth would only smile upon him, be her old friendly self to him again....
The man’s attentions to her were almost like an uncouth wooing. He began to study the girl’s wants, to find little ways to help her, to anticipate her desires, to ease her work about the house. He sought opportunities to talk with her, and drove himself to speak gently and ingratiatingly. He called her Ruthie, though she had always been Ruth to him before.
The man was pitiful; the girl could not wholly harden her heart against him. Naturally generous and kindly she caught herself thinking that after all he had loved Mary well; that he missed her terribly. Once or twice hearing him move about his room in the night she guessed his loneliness. She was more and more sorry for Evered.
Ruth was not the only one who saw that the man was growing old too swiftly. They marked the fact at Will Bissell’s store. Will saw it, and Lee Motley saw it, and Jim Saladine; these three with a certain sympathy. Jean Bubier saw it with sardonic amusement, tinged with understanding. Old Man Varney saw it with malice; and Judd in the meanness of his soul saw it with malignant delight.
“Looking for friends now, he is,” Judd exclaimed one night. “Him that was so bold before. Tried to start talk with me to-day. I turned my back on the man. I’d a mind to tell him why.”
Motley and Saladine spoke of the thing together. Motley said, “I think he—thought a deal of Mary—in the man’s way.”