They passed the little graveyard where the virgin bower clematis, already denuded of leaves, garlanded the pickets with brittle, bare, brown branches, softened here and there by the downy whorls of seed. Myron was telling Homer of her wish to leave Jamestown, and asking his advice. He had long felt this to be one possible solution of the position, but there were points that troubled him sorely. It was obvious that the best that could happen to Myron would be the return of the man for whom she had suffered so much. Homer confessed to himself that he had no hope that he would return, but yet had grown very uncertain and humble about his own judgment, and he thought Myron still believed in her betrayer's return. If he should return and Myron be gone? Would that not afford him a somewhat tenable excuse for continued infidelity? Suppose he should return and inquire for Myron Holder in the village? Homer sickened to think of the distorted picture that would then be drawn of her patient life.
As has been said, Homer had not a shadow of hope that he would return, but he thought Myron had. Sharpened as Homer's perceptions were by pain and love, they were not yet keen enough to grasp clearly how slight a shred of hope remained of all her brave fabric of belief. He could not understand how much of Myron's faithfulness was due to her own womanhood, how little now to any hope of reparation. He therefore hesitated when, laying everything before him, she asked him to decide.
As they neared the village they walked yet more slowly. They had much to say, and since that midsummer night Homer had never entered the cottage door. There seemed to issue from its portals forever a voice calling, "Homer, Homer," a voice whose infinite longings and needs shook his soul with a sense of his own impotency.
Little My wearied, and Homer raised him in his arms. So they made their way to the cottage—they two alone, for the child slept, and a strange loneliness lay over the quiet road and empty street. Myron took My within doors, and, coming out, she and Homer paced, side by side, up and down the little centre path. On either side were vegetables and withering grass, and down in the far corner the huge yellow globes of the pumpkins showed solidly through the dusk.
"Indeed, Myron dear, it would be easier for you if you went," he said, as they stood together in the shadow of the elm tree; "and later on My might have a happier time. For my part, I would have spoken of it long since, only—only——" He paused, and added in lower tones, "I knew the hope you lived in."
She bent toward him and said, very quietly but steadily, "I have no vestige of that hope left, Homer."
He looked down at her, an eagerness that strove against repression in his eyes.
"No," she continued, "My and I must hold our way alone. Tell me, then, Homer, do you think it would be ever so little easier if we went away from here?"
Her eyes held his, pleadingly, and filled with tears. It was one of the rare times when she felt self-pity.
"Yes, dear," he said, taking her hands, that fluttered nervously; "yes, we will make it easier—we will find a way for you to leave all this behind. You shall go and lose yourself, so that their prying eyes shall never find you, their itching ears never hear of you, their lying lips have nothing to tell of you—only, Myron, you will never try to hide from me, will you?"