“He jumped as if I'd stuck a brad-awl into him. The shocked expression came across his face again, and he runs to Emeline and takes her arm.
“'Sister, sister,' he says, quick, but gentle, 'this is no place for you. Language like that is . . . there! there! don't you think you'd better leave the room?'
“She didn't go. As I remember it now, it keeps comin' back to me that she didn't go. She just stood still and looked at me. And then she says: 'Seth, why did you lie to me?'”
“'I didn't lie,' I shouts. 'I forgot, I tell you. I never thought that windmill of a Christy woman was enough importance to remember. I didn't lie to you—I never did. Oh, Emeline, you know I didn't. What's the matter with you and me, anyway? We used to be all right and now we're all wrong.'
“'One of us is,' says Bennie D. That was the final straw that choked the camel.
“'Yes,' I says to him, 'that's right, one of us is, and I don't know which. But I know this: you and I can't stay together in this house any longer.'
“I can see that room now, as 'twas when I said that. Us three lookin' at each other, and the clock a-tickin', and everything else still as still. I choked, but I kept on.
“'I mean it,' I says. 'Either you clear out of this house or I do.'
“And, while the words was on my lips, again it came to me strong that it wa'n't really my house at all. I turned to my wife.
“'Emeline,' says I, 'it's got to be. You must tell him to go, or else—'