"Not a bit of it," said Hornby good-naturedly.
"I'll come and help you put the mare in," said Marsh, starting to follow Hornby and Mrs. Sharp down the path.
"I guess it's a relief to you, now you know," he called back to his brother-in-law.
"Terrible. I want to have a talk with you presently, Ed. I'll go on out with him, I guess," he said, turning to his wife.
She nodded silently. She was grateful to him for leaving her alone for a time. They would have much to say to each other a little later.
"Hold on, Ed, I'm coming."
"Right you are!"
He ran lightly down the path where his brother-in-law stood waiting for him.
She stood for a long moment looking down at the innocent-looking little blossoms on her table. And they could cause such heartbreak and desolation, ranking, as engines of destruction, with the frost and the hail! Could make such seasoned and tried women as Mrs. Sharp weep and bring the gray look of apprehension into the eyes of a man like her husband. Those innocent-looking little flowers!
What must he have felt as he saw her arranging them so light-heartedly in her pudding-dish that morning. And yet, rather than mar her pleasure, he had choked back the impulse to speak. Yes, that was like him. For a moment they blurred as she looked at them. She checked her inclination to throw them into the stove, to burn them to ashes so that they could work their evil spells no more. Later on, she would do so. But she wanted them there until he returned.