She ceased speaking. The minister, who had sat silent by the window, apathetically listening or trying to listen, turned his head.
“I apologize, Mrs. Coffin,” he said dully, “you have had trials, hard ones. But—”
“But they ain't as hard as yours, you think? Well, I haven't quite finished yet. After word come of my husband's death, the other man come and wanted me to marry him. And I wanted to—oh, how I wanted to! I cared as much for him as I ever did; more, I guess. But I wouldn't—I wouldn't, though it wrung my heart out to say no. I give him up—why? 'cause I thought I had a duty laid on me.”
Ellery sighed. “I can see but one duty,” he said. “That is the duty given us by God, to marry the one we love.”
Keziah's agitation, which had grown as she told her story, suddenly flashed into flame.
“Is that as fur as you can see?” she asked fiercely. “It's an easy duty, then—or looks easy now. I've got a harder one; it's to stand by the promise I gave and the man I married.”
He looked at her as if he thought she had lost her wits.
“The man you married?” he replied. “Why, the man you married is dead.”
“No, he ain't. You remember the letter you saw me readin' that night when you come back from Come-Outers' meetin'? Well, that letter was from him. He's alive.”
For the first time during the interview the minister rose to his feet, shocked out of his despair and apathy by this astounding revelation.