"I would marry no man on earth who wouldn't believe me in spite of that—and everything else," she said.
"Do you expect a man to believe you in spite of his eyes?"
"Eyes, ears—everything! Do you think I'd have turned on you like that before I had heard you?"
A sob, not of pity, but of rage, burst from her lips, and the sound sobered him more completely than her accusations had done. Her temper he could withstand, but that little childish sob, bitten back almost before it escaped, brought him again on his knees to her.
"I can't understand—oh, Molly, don't you see I am in torment?" he cried.
But the veil of softness was gone now, and the cruelty that is bound up in some inexplicable way in all violent emotion—even in the emotion of love—showed itself on the surface.
"Then stay there, for you've made it for yourself," she answered, and turned away from him. As his voice called her again, she broke into a run, flying before him over the green meadow until she reached the lawn of Jordan's Journey, and his pursuit ended. Then, hurrying through the orchard and up the flagged walk, she ascended the steps, and bent over Reuben in his chair.
"Grandfather, I am back. Are you asleep?"
The robin that had flown from the railing at her approach swung on the bough of an apple-tree and regarded her with attention.
"Grandfather," she said again, touching him, "oh, grandfather, wake up!"