Joe looked at him in astonishment.
“Why, lad, you don’t go thinking o’ that now, surely?” he said.
Hal clinked the coins together and looked round the kitchen ruefully. “I couldn’t give her aught then—but now—if only——” His voice trailed off and ceased.
Joe shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Don’t think on it, lad, don’t think on it,” he advised.
Hal laughed bitterly.
“You know not what you say, Joe Pullen,” he said, “I must think on it. ’Tis all I have to think on,” and he puffed at his pipe almost fiercely.
Joe did not speak, and after a while the other went on again; he spoke jerkily, and his voice was very low:
“Sometimes I think I see her come in crying and him after her. That’s when I try to forget, but it’s no use, I can’t; she loved him, I reckon; I can’t forget that.”
Joe cleared his throat noisily.