“You hadn't HEARD from him? Ain't he been writin' you right along?”
“No. The fact is he left me two years ago without even sayin' good-by, and—and I thought he had gone for good. But he hadn't,” with a sigh, “he hadn't. And he wanted to talk with me. That's why he took the other road—so's he'd have more time to talk, I s'pose.”
“Humph! Emeline, answer me true: Wa'n't you goin' to Denboro to get—to get a divorce from me?”
“A divorce? A divorce from YOU? Seth Bascom, I never heard such—”
She rose from her seat against the rail.
“Set down,” ordered her husband sharply. “You set down and keep down.”
She stared, gasped, and resumed her seat. Seth gazed straight ahead into the blackness. He swallowed once or twice, and his hands tightened on the spokes of the wheel.
“That—that feller there,” nodding grimly toward the groaning figure at the pumps, “told me himself that him and you had agreed to get a divorce from me—to get it right off. He give me to understand that you expected him, 'twas all settled and that was why he'd come to Eastboro. That's what he told me this afternoon on the depot platform.”
Mrs. Bascom again sprang up.
“Set down!” commanded Seth.