Sometimes in the late afternoon when vitality was at its lowest point, she remembered the airy rooms in which she had lived last summer, the bare floors, the furniture in chintz covers, the drifting of white curtains in a gentle breeze. But of last summer she did not often let herself think. She heard no word from Stephen, nor sent him any. She remembered now half-acknowledged dreams, more vivid in retrospect than they had been in actuality, of position and travel and great possessions, and her heart burned, now with self-reproach, now with resentment at life's cruel chances.
The wheat was safely harvested and no rain fell. Matthew, increasingly anxious about the corn, searched the sky for clouds. He was irritable even with the children. Ellen bore with him and pitied him and obeyed the commands of Millie.
Early in August Matthew sat one evening on the doorstep. There had been since noon a low bank of clouds in the west, but he had often been deceived by banks of clouds. When they rose higher, he was immensely cheered, pointing them out to Millie, who merely looked sullenly in the opposite direction, and said nothing. He turned to Ellen and asked her to walk with him to the woodland from which they could get a better view. She looked at Millie's lowering face.
"Won't you go, Millie? I'll stay here."
"I wasn't asked," said Millie briefly, her very flesh tingling with resentment.
For an instant Ellen hesitated; then she followed Matthew across the yard and the stubble-field to the woodland.
Before their eyes the sun sank in a blaze of glory. On bright days only could a low range of hills be seen from this point, but now they believed they could see beyond to the gleaming river. As the sun disappeared they sat down on the old tree-trunk. The hot wind bred restlessness and sadness.
"I was wrong about everything," said Matthew soberly after a long time. "What I said in the meeting-house was nonsense, as my father said it was. I was misled."
Ellen was appalled. Matthew had arranged his whole life in accord with that confession. But she could give him no comfort; when Levis died she had been a child, and since that time, greatly as she had been troubled, she had felt no need for superhuman reassurance.
"It must have been very hard to give it all up after you had believed it."