“But you said she didn't love him.”
“Did I? That was a slip of the tongue, maybe. But she bears it well and I don't think she gives up hope. I try not to, for her sake, and I try not to show her how I feel.”
She sewed vigorously for a few moments. Then she said:
“She's goin' away, Gracie is.”
“Going away?”
“Yup. She's goin' to stay with a relation of the Hammonds over in Connecticut for a spell. I coaxed her into it. Stayin' here at home with all this suspense and with Hannah Poundberry's tongue droppin' lamentations like kernels out of a corn sheller, is enough to kill a healthy batch of kittens with nine lives apiece. She didn't want to go; felt that she must stay here and wait for news; but I told her we'd get news to her as soon as it come, and she's goin'.”
Ellery took his hat from the peg and opened the door. His foot was on the step when Keziah spoke again.
“She—it don't mean nothin', John, except that she ain't so hard-hearted as maybe you might think—she's asked me about you 'most every time I've been there. She told me to take good care of you.”
The door closed. Keziah put down her sewing and listened as the minister's step sounded on the walk. She rose, went to the window and looked after him. She was wondering if she had made a mistake in mentioning Grace's name. She had meant to cheer him with the thought that he was not entirely forgotten, that he was, at least, pitied; but perhaps it would have been better to have remained silent. Her gaze shifted and she looked out over the bay, blue and white in the sun and wind. When she was a girl the sea had been kind to her, it had brought her father home safe, and those homecomings were her pleasantest memories. But she now hated it. It was cruel and cold and wicked. It had taken the man she loved and would have loved till she died, even though he could never have been hers, and she had given him to another; it had taken him, killed him cruelly, perhaps. And now it might be bringing to her the one who was responsible for all her sorrow, the one she could not think of without a shudder. She clung to the window sash and prayed aloud.
“Lord! Lord!” she pleaded, “don't put any more on me now. I couldn't stand it! I couldn't!”