"I'm glad to see he's got that much consideration. We left the old place because folks couldn't forget how he'd disgraced himself; an' to come right where he is! I never heard of anything like it. Why didn't he leave the State if he wanted to save us more trouble?" wiping tears of vexation from her eyes. "You spent nearly all you had to get him out of prison, an' when he had to go to the penitentiary it killed his pa an' ma, an'—"
"Be silent, woman! you don't know what you are talkin' about!" he said sternly, writhing in his chair like a creature in bodily pain. "God A'mighty forgive me!" He paused, smote his knee with his open palm, and turned his face away.
"Well, if I don't know what I'm talkin' about, I'd like to know the reason!" she cried, with the same angry excitement. "You ain't been like the same man you were before that happened, you know you ain't. I'll never be willin' to claim kin with 'Zeki'l Morgan again, never! Folks may find out for themselves; an' they'll do it soon enough—don't you be pestered—soon enough."
But not a suspicion of the truth seemed to occur to Zion Hill settlement. The Morgans were welcomed with great friendliness, and 'Zeki'l alone failed to visit them. Children sat around his brother's fireside, a wife ministered to him; but he had forfeited all claim to such homely joys. The girls had evidently been informed of his relationship to them, for they looked askance at him as they passed along the road, pity and curiosity in their eyes. Once he came out of the blacksmith shop, and, meeting his sister-in-law in the roadway, stopped her, or she would have passed with averted head.
"You needn't be so careful, Marthy Ann," he said, without the slightest touch of bitterness in his calm tone.
"It is for the children's sake, 'Zeki'l," she said, her sallow face flushing with a feeling akin to shame. "I must think o' them."
He gave her a strange glance, then looked to the ground.
"I know; I thought o' them years ago."
"It's a pity you didn't think before—"
"Yes, so it is; but some deeds aren't to be accounted for, nor recalled either, no matter how deeply we repent."