"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I calc'late I kin keep on drawin' my breath till then—if you kin. I call to mind the time when you was all-fired oneasy if Jed got away from you for six hours in a stretch."
"Them times is gone," she said, shortly.
"Shucks!" said Scattergood.
"They be," she said, fiercely. "Hain't no use tryin' to hide it. Jed and me is about through. Nothin' but fussin' and backbitin' and maneuvering'. He don't care f'r me no more like he used to, and—"
"You don't set sich a heap of store by him," Scattergood interrupted.
Martha hesitated. "I do," she said, slowly. "But I can't put up with it no more."
"Jed's fault—mostly," said Scattergood, as one speaks who utters an accepted fact.
"No more 'n mine," she said, with a sudden flash. "I dunno what's got into us, Mr. Baines, but we no sooner git into the same room than it commences. 'Tain't no-body's fault—it jest is."
"Um!... Kinder like to have things the way they used to be?"
"Oh, Mr. Baines!" Her eyes filled. "Them first two-three years! Jed was the best man a woman ever had."