"I know you did n't, Cale—and can't we keep this between ourselves?"
"Jest as you say, Marcia. What you say ter me won't go no further. There ain't no one nigher to me than you in all this world—
"Nor than—" I began. I was about to say, "than you to me"; but I cut short the words that would have perjured the new joy in my heart.
Cale apparently took no notice of the unfinished sentence.
"Sometime I want ter know 'bout your life these last ten years—I can't sorter rest easy till I know."
"There is so little to tell. Aunt Keziah died eight years ago; then I went down to New York to earn my living, and worked there till I came here—on a venture."
"It's the best you ever made," he said emphatically. "Get sick of it there?"
"Yes, I should have died if I 'd stayed in that city any longer; it was too much for me."
I felt his hand grasp mine still more closely.
"So 'twas, so 'twas," he said to himself; then to me: