"I'll go down to the Company dam right soon," said he. "Ministers comes in down there sometimes. Up here we ain't got no church. I ain't been to church—well, scarcely in my whole life, but sure not fer ten years. You want to have it over with, don't you, ma'am?"
"Yes."
"That's just the way I feel! It may take a week or so before I can get any minister up here. But I hope you ain't a-goin' to change?"
"I don't change," said Mary Warren. "If I promise, I promise. I have said—yes."
"How is your bad knee?" she asked after a time, with an attempt to be of service to him. "You've never told me."
"Swoll up twict as big as it ought to be, ma'am. But how come you to think of that? You mustn't mind about me. You mustn't never think of me a-tall."
"Now," he continued a little later, the place seeming insufferably small to him all at once, "I think I've got to get out in the air." He pushed over his box seat with much clatter as he rose, agony in every fiber of his soul.
"I suppose you could kiss me," said Mary Warren, hesitatingly. "It's—usual." She tried to smile as she turned her face toward him. It was a piteous thing, a terrible thing.
"No, ma'am, thank you. I don't think I will, now, but I thank you just the same. You see, this ain't a usual case."
"Good-by!" said Mary Warren to him with a sudden wondering joy. "Go out and look at the mountains for me. Look out over the valley. I wish I could see them. And you'll come in and see me when you can, won't you?"