'You know I couldn't.'
'I don't say as how you could then, but that's not now. Yon lad has forgotten her long since, I'll lay. They soldiers never hold to one thing long together.'
'Cuthbert forgotten Hildred!' I said. 'Not he.'
'Have it your own way,' he answered; 'only we want to get hold of some woman that'll keep things straight, that's clear.'
It was the first time for very long that he had touched on that old string. It was not by very many the last. The notion that I must bring home a wife, to 'keep things straight,' and to take care of Granny, had taken a strong hold upon him. If I was a fool, and would not marry Hildred, I must find just some one else; but he had far rather have her about the place than a stranger: he was used to the lass.
In vain I told him that she cared for Cuthbert, and would not marry me.
'Just you ask her. A bird in hand's worth two in the bush any day. Tell her I'll be a father to her.'
Once it might have been, not now.
I could only try my best to prevent him from missing any of his comforts, and turn my hand to everything. But I was clumsy: the woman's work did not come easily.
And now Cuthbert had been gone for more than two years. A second letter came from him some six months after the first. Since then we had heard nothing.