Moses Slade looked at her sharply. “You do want to marry me, don’t you, Em ... I mean Emma.... You’re not trying to get out of it?”
“Of course I want to marry you. I only mentioned this because I believe in facing things.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“It’s twenty-four years this January. I remember it well. It was snowing that night, just after the January thaw....”
He checked what would have been a long story by saying, “Twenty-four years ... all alone without a husband. You’re a brave little woman, Emma.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue, and looked at her fondly. “Well, that’s a long time ... long enough for him to be considered dead under law. But we’ll have him declared dead by law and then we won’t have to worry.”
Emma was staring at the floor with a curious fixed look in her eyes. At last she said, “Do you think that would be right? He might still be alive. He might come back.”
Moses Slade grew blustering, as if he were actually jealous of that shadow of the man who kept looking down at him with an air of sardonic amusement.
“It won’t make any difference if we declare him dead. Besides, he hasn’t got any right to you if he is alive.”
It wasn’t that she was simply afraid he might return; the source of her alarm went much deeper than that. She felt that she couldn’t trust herself if he did return; but of course she couldn’t explain that to Moses.
“It wasn’t quite that,” she murmured, and, conscious that the remark didn’t make sense, she asked quickly, “How long ought it to take?”