“I shall go to Colebyville to-morrow, and see Doctor Morgan and look after business matters. I’ll tell you what we decide upon when I get home. There’ll have to be a real division of the property now. I don’t know what to do about living here alone. I suppose there’ll be every kind of gossip?”
The last part of the sentence was a question, and one Luther was not the man to evade.
“You’ll have a lot of talk that hain’t got no truth in it to meet,” he said reluctantly. “You’ll have t’ have some one with you here. You couldn’t git Hornby, could you?” Luther knew the nature of the gossip the neighbours would wreak upon her.
A light fell upon Elizabeth.
“The very idea!” she exclaimed. “Just what I need to do and at the same time just what I would love to do.”
Luther was delighted that that important feature of the matter could be so easily arranged. He could not bear to have her mixed up with any sort of scandal, when her neighbours so little understood the real situation, and would be so ready to strike her wherever they could.
“Then you go an’ see Hornby to-night, Lizzie. Have Jake hitch up for you, an’ take Hepsie along.” Luther paused a moment and then proceeded on another phase of her troubles.
“Lizzie, how do you feel about it? Do you—would you like t’ have ’im back? ’Cause if you would, I’ll go to Mitchell County for you. You ain’t goin’ t’ have no easy time of it here. Folks—specially th’ women’s—goin’ t’ have it in for you quite a bit.”
“No,” Elizabeth answered promptly. “I’ll take whatever comes from my neighbours. I can shut my doors and keep them outside, but, Luther, I can’t go on as things have been on the inside of my own house. I don’t want to talk about it at all, even to you, but I shall let him go. It’s better than some other things. We’d simply come to the place where we had to understand each other. I’d a great deal rather have him back than to have him gone, but he wouldn’t understand at all if I sent for him.”
Luther looked at her approvingly and yet something in him held back. He longed to spare her all the low tittle-tattle of her neighbours, the coarse jests of the hired men among themselves, and the eternal suspicions of the women.