"He seems hard to understand—Mr. Gage," she went on slowly, the damp of sheer anguish on her forehead now at speaking as she never could wish to speak, thus to a stranger, and of the most intimate things of a gentlewoman's life. "As though I didn't know he couldn't ever really love a woman like me! Of course it isn't right either way. It's awful.… But I'd do my best. Life is more of a compromise than I used to think it was. But someway, out here—I'd be shut in forever here in this Valley. No one would ever know. It—it wouldn't seem so wicked, some way? It's the end of the world, isn't it, to-day? Well, then——"
"I'm trying my best," said Doctor Barnes after a time, "to get at the inside of your mind."
She lay for a time picking at the nap of the rough blanket—there were no pillow slips and no pillows. At length she turned to him, her eyes wet.
"It's rather hard for a man to understand things like these—hard for a woman to explain them to a stranger she's never seen," said she. "But there wasn't ever any other man. I'm not here on any rebound. It's reason—it's duty. That's all. They keep telling us women we must reason. My brother was all I had left. You see, he didn't have a good foot—he was lame. That was why we lived together so long, and—and there was no one else. And then—you know about my eyes? Of course I didn't know I was going to be quite blind when I started out here. If I had, I should have ended it all."
"You're a good man, Doctor," said she presently, since he made no answer. "You didn't tell me your name?"
"My name is Allen Barnes. I've been down at the dam for quite a while. I'm only around thirty yet myself. I don't know a lot."
"Tell me about the country—it's very beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes, very beautiful."
"And the people?"
"If you don't marry Sim Gage they'll tar and feather you. If you do, they'll back-bite and hate you. If you get in trouble they'll work their fingers to the bone to take care of you."