“I’ve been listenin’ t’ more’n them,” he said with the fixed purpose of drawing her out on the subject. “I’ve been listenin’ t’ some as says you’re too high and mighty t’ associate with th’ likes of us—an’ I’ve heard it said that your husband won’t take you nowhere. Now I just naturally know that a man can’t shut a woman up in this American country, so’s she can’t go anywhere she wants t’, if she wants t’ bad enough; an’ I remember how Hunter was ’fore ’e married you; ’e was always on th’ go—an’ there’s a nigger in th’ woodpile somewheres.”
Elizabeth was for the moment staggered. What he said was so true. And yet, how untrue! It was hard to think with the eye of suspicion on her. Appearances were against her, but she was determined not to discuss the privacies of her married life. She paused and looked Nathan squarely in the face till she could control her reasoning faculties.
“That is neither here nor there,” she said quite firmly at last. “I shall not defend myself to you, Uncle Nate, nor explain away bad reports. It would not help me and it would not help you. What I am here for is to offer you my love now. What I want you to believe is that I mean it, that I’ve wanted to come, that I’m here because I want to be here, and that I never mean to neglect you again. I—I couldn’t come to see her—but, oh, Uncle Nate, mayn’t I come to see you? I can’t tell you all the little ins and outs of why I haven’t come before, but you must believe me.”
Elizabeth ended imploringly.
The man was softened by her evident sincerity in spite of himself, and yet his wound was of long standing, his belief in her honesty shaken, his beloved wife in her grave, assisted to her final stroke by this girl’s neglect, and he could not lay his bitterness aside easily. He did not speak.
The silence which followed was broken only by the ticking of the old-fashioned Seth Thomas clock and the roar of the fire.
Elizabeth looked around the familiar room in her dilemma, entangled in the mesh of her loyalty to her husband’s dubious and misleading actions. Nearly every article in that room was associated with some tender recollection in the girl’s mind. Not even the perplexity of the moment could entirely shut out the reminiscent side of the occasion. The bread-board, dusty and unused, leaned against the flour barrel, the little line above it where the dishtowels should hang sagged under the weight of a bridle hung there to warm the frosty bit, the rocking chair, mended with broom wire after the cyclone, and on its back Aunt Susan’s chambray sunbonnet where it had fallen from its nail: all familiar. With a little cry Elizabeth fell on her knees by Nathan Hornby’s side.
“Oh, Uncle Nate! you can’t tell what others have to contend with, and—and you must not even ask, but——” She could not proceed for sobs.
Nathan Hornby’s own face twitched and trembled with emotion. The girl had unconsciously used Susan’s own last words. His heart was touched. Susan’s great love for Elizabeth pleaded for her.
“Can’t I come, Uncle Nate? Won’t you be friends with me?”