“She’s afraid her mother will hear of it in some way.”
“She’ll find it out in time, Frances; a thing like that walks on a man’s grave.”
“It will not matter so much after a while, after her first grief settles.”
“Did Nola come back with you?”
“No, she went on to take some things to poor old Mrs. Lassiter. She never has recovered from the loss of her son—it’s killing her by inches, Tom says. And you considering that office of sheriff!” She turned to him with censorious eyes as she spoke, as if struck with a pain of which he was the cause. “I tell you, you men don’t know, you don’t know! It’s the women that suffer in all this shooting and killing—we are the ones that have to bear the sorrows in the night and watch through the uncertain days!”
“Yes,” said he gently, “the poor women must bear most of this world’s pain. That is why God made them strong above all his created things.”
They sat in silence, thinking it over between them. Outside there was sunshine over the brown rangeland; within there dwelt the lifting confidence that their feet had passed the days of trouble and were entering the bounds of an enlarging peace.
“And Major King?” said he.
“Father has relented, as I knew he would, out of regard for their friendship of the past, and will not bring charges based on Major King’s plottings with Chadron.”