She sought vainly for some phrase less bald than that which seemed so uncompromisingly full of embarrassment.
"Did he ever try to kiss me, ye mean? No, indeed, Miss Sydney; he sho' didn'. Only one time when Ah was a girl we kep' company fo' a right smart bit, 'n one night, when a lot of us was playin' tag in the pasture, he caught me 'n kissed me. That's the only time, hones', Miss Sydney. He never done a thing like this befo' to-day since Ah been married; jus' hung roun' 'n been aggravatin'."
Sydney took the hard hand between her own soft palms and stroked it gently.
"Hush, dear, don't sob like that. Can't Bud keep him away? Can't he forbid him to come here?"
"Ah'd be afraid to tell him about this, he's that fiery-tempered, Bud is. He goes along jus' as easy, 'n then some day he jus' natchelly goes rarin'. When Ah've tol' him how Pink comes botherin' me, he jus' says, 'Pore feller, he didn' get ye. Ah'm sorry fo' him.' But 'f Ah tell him this he might shoot him, 'n Ah couldn' bear that!"
Melissa ended with a shuddering cry, and Sydney remembered pityingly how the girl's brother had been brought home dead two years ago, shot in a quarrel whose primary cause was corn whisky.
"Tell me, Melissa, what did he mean by that threat,—that he'd make you sorry you'd married Bud? How can he harm him?"
"Ah don' know, oh, Ah don' know," sobbed the poor girl; "only hit's somethin' mahty mean fo' sho'. He's that low-down 'n sneaky hit's sho' to be somethin' mean," she reiterated.
"It seems to me, Melissa, that if I were married, I shouldn't want to have a secret that my husband didn't know. Of course, you understand Bud best; but be sure, quite sure, that it is right before you keep anything from him, won't you?"
A wail from within the cabin brought both the girls to their feet. The fortunate rule that most women who have to worry over their husbands have children to divert their minds was unbroken in Melissa's case. She wiped her eyes, took the morsel from the bed, and kissed it passionately, while Sydney looked on with avid gaze.