"Smith," he asked in a hollow voice, "do you suppose it's really any worse to die by your own hand than by disease?"
"By Jove!" exclaimed Ordway, and the moment afterward, "Come, now, out with it, Banks. How has she been behaving this time?"
Banks lowered his voice, while he glanced suspiciously up at the branches of the cherry tree beneath which they sat.
"She hates the sight of me," he answered, with a groan.
"Nonsense," rejoined Ordway, cheerfully. "Love has before now worn the mask of scorn."
"But it hasn't worn the mask of boredom," retorted the despairing Banks.
For a minute his answer appeared final even to Ordway, who stared blankly over the ripened cornfield across the road, without, for the life of him, being able to frame a single encouraging sentence in reply.
"If it's the last word I speak," pursued Banks, biting desperately at the stem of his pipe, "she cannot abide the sight of me."
"But how does she show it?" demanded Ordway, relieved that he was not expected to combat the former irrefutable statement.
"She tried to keep me away from the springs where she went, and when I would follow her, whether or no, she hardly opened her mouth to me for the first two days. Then if I asked her to go to walk she would say it was too hot for walking, and if I asked her to drive she'd answer that she didn't drive with men. As if she and I hadn't been together in a dog-cart over every road within twenty miles of Tappahannock!"