She used to sing that, the man was thinking,—this other Annie of his own. Why, she had been his own, and he had loved her once. How he had loved her! Yes, she used to sing that when he went to see her on Sunday nights, before they were married,—in her pink, plump, pretty days. Annie used to be very pretty.
"Gave me her promise true,"
hummed the little fiddle.
"That's a fact," said poor Annie's husband, jerking the words out under his hat, "and kept it too, she did."
Ah, how Annie had kept it! The whole dark picture of her married years,—the days of work and pain, the nights of watching, the patient voice, the quivering mouth, the tact and the planning and the trust for to-morrow, the love that had borne all things, believed all things, hoped all things, uncomplaining,—rose into outline to tell him how she had kept it.
"Her face is as the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on,"
suggested the little fiddle.
That it should be darkened forever, the sweet face! and that he should do it,—he, sitting here, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado.
"And ne'er forget will I,"
murmured the little fiddle.