"John, don't talk that way."
"I won't. You went to see her."
"Yes, and in that miserable house, all open, she is nursing her dying husband."
The Major got up and began to walk about the room. "Don't, Margaret, I'd rather not hear about it."
"But you must hear. No place could be more desolate. The wind was moaning in the old plum thicket. The gate was down and hogs were rooting in the yard. Louise did not hear me as I drove up, the wind was moaning so distressfully among the dead plum bushes—she did not know that I was on the place until I entered the room where she sat at the bedside of her husband. She jumped up with a cry and——"
"Margaret, please don't."
"I must tell you, John. I will tell you. She jumped up with a cry and ran to me, and started to take off my cloak, but remembering that there was no fire in the damp room, she let it stay on. She tried to speak, but couldn't. Her husband held out his waxen hand, and when I took it I shuddered with the cold chill it sent through me."
"Margaret, I am going out," said the Major, turning toward the door.
"If you do, John, I will go with you and tell you as we walk along. Please sit down."
He sat down with an air of helplessness. He fumbled with his fingers, which seemed to have grown thicker; he moved his foot as if it were a heavy weight. His wife continued: "In the room there was scarcely any furniture, nothing to soften the appearance of bleakness. I asked why no fire had been made, and Louise said that she had engaged a negro to cut some wood, but that he had gone away. She had paid him in advance. She would herself have kindled a fire, but there was no axe on the place, and she was afraid to leave her husband long enough to go to the woods to gather sticks. I went out and found the negro dozing in the sun. He was impudent when I spoke to him, but when I told him my name and threatened him with you, he scuffled to his feet and sauntered off, and I thought that we should see no more of him, but soon we heard the lazy strokes of his axe. And shortly afterward we had a fire. Louise was in one of her silent moods, but Pennington talked as much as his cough would permit him. He said that it was all his fault. 'I told her,' said he, 'that unless she married me I would die blaspheming the name of God, and that if she would save me from hell she must be my wife. I know that it was selfish and mean, but I couldn't help it. And so she has married me to save my soul.' He grew excited and I tried to calm him. I told him that you were angry at first, but that now you were in a better humor toward him."