"I've felt that way a little myself, Matildy," confessed the watcher, in a scared whisper.
"I knew it, Mattie; I knew you'd know how I felt. Things have been better for you. You ain't had to live in an old log house all your life, an' work yourself to skin an' bone for a man you don't respect nor like."
"Matildy Bent, take that back! Take it back, for mercy sake! Don't you dare die thinkin' that—don't you dare!"
Bent, hearing her voice rising, came to the door, and the wife, recognizing his step, cried out:
"Don't let him in! Don't! I can't bear him—keep him out; I don't want to see him ag'in."
"Who do you mean? Not Joe?"
"Yes! Him!"
Had the dying woman confessed to murder, good Martha could not have been more shocked. She could not understand this terrible revulsion in feeling, for she herself had been absolutely loyal to her husband through all the trials which had come upon them.
But she met Bent at the threshold, and, closing the door, went out with him into the summer kitchen, where the rest of the family were sitting. A gloomy silence fell on them all after the greetings were over. The men were smoking; all were seated in chairs tipped back against the wall. Joe Bent, a smallish man, with a weak, good-natured face, asked, in a hoarse whisper:
"How is she, Mis' Ridings?"