“He’s come round all right, Jean. He’s pretty safe from the drink now. He’s worked it off.”
“He can do anything he tries. And you’ve done a great deal to help him. You wouldn’t have come back to the mines if you hadn’t thought he needed you.”
“Oh, pshaw! Jean. But I guess I was stuck on him, all right, or I wouldn’t have come back. I guess you know why he came here—it was for you. And the goin’ to work—I guessed you did that, too. It listens like you, Jean. And now he’s made over—and you made him. I want you to be good to him.”
“He’s my friend and yours—that’s all, Joe,” she said firmly. “I may not be in Denbeigh for a good while but I want to tell you before I go that I’m still ready to come back to you. If you’ll give me another chance I’ll do my best. I mean it, Joe, with all my heart.”
“I wish you’d stop thinking about that business. It ain’t no use, Jean. And now you got a big chance and I’d only be in the way. You don’t want to come back—not honest in your heart you don’t; you just think it’s right; and Father Jim told you you oughtn’t to have left me—that the divorce was a sin. But you’re free—and I’m not holding you.”
“If you want to come any time you can always find out where I am,” she said. “I shall always be ready.”
“He came here because you had lived here. I guess I know him! I knew that when we started from Gettysburg. And he’s workin’ now to please you. You’re all he’s got. You can bet he wouldn’t take what he’s takin’—the work and the boardin’ house diet—for nothin’. You got him goin’, Jean; he wants you to see that he’s got good stuff in him. He’s fightin’ off his thirst every day; that’s why he walks so much at night. I don’t have to watch him any more—he’s got a grip on himself. He comes into the boardin’ house after everybody’s gone to bed and tumbles down in his bunk so dead tired he don’t hear nothin’ till the old woman beats the tin pan. You ought to be proud, Jean, that a man like him’s doin’ this for you.”
“Mr. Craighill’s a good man; he doesn’t need any help from me.”
“He’s the real gold,” added Joe, “and I want you to be good to him. I want you to marry him, Jean.”
“Oh, Joe! Joe!” she cried despairingly, “don’t speak of such a thing! You don’t know how foolish you are to talk so!”