"They said that Dick give a start when Milly come into the room. I reckon he expected to see the same little girl he'd fooled twenty years back, and when she come walkin' in it jest took him by surprise.
"'Why, Milly,' says he, 'is this you?'
"And he held out his hand, and she walked over to the bed and laid her hand in his. Folks that was there say it was a strange sight for any one that remembered what them two used to be. Her so gentle and sweet-lookin', and him all wore out with bad livin' and wasted to a shadder of what he used to be.
"I've seen the same thing, child, over and over again. Two people'll start out together, and after a while they'll git separated, or, maybe, they'll live together a lifetime, and when they git to the end o' fifteen or twenty or twenty-five years, one'll be jest where he was when they set out, and the other'll be 'way up and 'way on, and they're jest nothin' but strangers after all. That's the way it was with Milly and Dick. They'd been sweethearts, and there was the child; but the father'd gone his way and the mother'd gone hers, and now there was somethin' between 'em like that 'great gulf' the Bible tells about. Well, they said Dick looked up at Milly like a hungry man looks at bread, and at last he says:
"'I'm goin' to make an honest woman of you, Milly.'
"And Milly looked him in the eyes and said as gentle and easy as if she'd been talkin' to a sick child: 'I've always been an honest woman, Dick.'
"This kind o' took him back again, but he says, right earnest and pitiful, 'I want to marry you, Milly; don't refuse me. I want to do one decent thing before I die. I've come all the way from California just for this. Surely you'll feel better if you are my lawful wife.'
"And they said Milly thought a minute and then she says: 'I don't believe it makes any difference with me, Dick. I've been through the worst, and I'm used to it. But if it'll make it any easier for you, I'll marry you. And then there's my boy; maybe it will be better for him.'
"'Where's the boy?' says Dick; 'I want to see him.'
"So Milly went and called Richard in. And as soon as Dick saw him he raised up on his elbow, weak as he was, and hollered out so you could hear him in the next room.