"You are well satisfied with yourself," she asked, "as you are?"
"Perfectly, so long as I am left unmolested."
"You positively are aware of no fault? Nothing that you would like to obliterate from your memory?"
"Ha! ha!" he exclaimed. "Now I know what you are driving at. Well, I am in the mood to let you preach. So fire away."
She cast her shadowed eyes in a heavenward direction.
"Oh, don't turn up the whites of your eyes over me," he added. "I can assure you, I and the Almighty are on excellent terms."
His scoffing tone appeared to wound her deeply. She put her hands before her face, and leaned back in her chair, trembling.
His mothers advice occurred to him. He saw now that he ought to have made more allowance for the excitable condition of her nerves, and was vexed with himself for having been so rude.
"Hannah," he entreated, in a voice full of kindness, "be reasonable. Let us talk freely and openly, straight from the heart, as we used to do in old days. If we are frank with each other, things must be cleared up. A quarrel between you and me is a pure caprice. Come, Hannah, tell me, what is the grudge you bear against me?"
She let her hands fall from her face. Every drop of blood receded from her cheeks and brow. Then, as she raised both arms as if shielding herself from him, she cried, in a voice from which all the pent-up torment of a thousand sleepless nights seemed to break forth--