"Talking wouldn't make you anything but a divorced man, John," she said.
"But you can't blame me for that—Adele did that!"
"Yes, I know, dear. But the fact is a fact, just the same."
"But—" He began some protest eagerly; his voice died away.
"See here, John." Martie locked her hands about the empty, battered pan that had held the chickens' breakfast. "I was a girl here, ten years ago, and I gave my parents plenty of trouble. Then I married, and I suffered—and paid—for that. Then I came home, shabby and sad and poor, and my father and sister took me in. Now comes this opportunity to make a good man happy, to give my boy a good home, to make my father and sisters proud and satisfied, to do, in a word, the dutiful, normal thing that I've been failing to do all these years! He loves me, and—I've known him since I was a child—I do truly love him. This is July—we are to be married in August."
"You are NOT!" he said, through set jaws.
"But I am. I've always been a trial and a burden to them, John—I could work my hands to the bone, more, I could write another 'Mary Beatrice' without giving them half the joy that this marriage will give!"
"That's the kind they are!" he said, with a boyish attempt at a sneer.
She laughed forgivingly, seeing the hurt beneath the unworthy effort, and laid her fingers over his.
"That's the kind I am, too! This is my home, and this is my life, and God is good to me to make it so pleasant and so easy!"