"Bill, you know, the other day I said that there was something in my favor, an outgrowth of my sister's education. A family union, don't you see? But I had no idea when I said it that this very thing would put the fire under a man that has stood by me. I'm awfully sorry that things had to be shaped that way. You know what I mean; father told you all about it. Is it bad, Bill? I won't say a word about it and the old folks don't suspect a thing, but do you love her much? Tell me just as if she wasn't any kin to me."
"Did the martyrs who stood in the fire love their God?" I asked.
He sighed. "She's got you, Bill. The time has been so short that I didn't think it could be so bad, but love doesn't look at the clock nor keep a calendar. Are you going to try to keep on living, Bill?"
"Yes, I'm going to study law when I get through with this school, and I'm going to make the law of divorce a specialty. If I can't do I may undo; I'm going to be a wolf, and whenever I see a man aiming a gun at another man, I'm not going to catch the hammers. Why, yesterday my heart was tender because it thought to please her. Discretion! I've got no discretion. I'm a brute. I murdered an innocent rabbit on my way to your home—killed it just because I could; and what man is as innocent as a rabbit? Yes, Alf, I am going to live."
"But you won't hate Guinea, will you? She couldn't help it."
"Oh, I couldn't hate her. No, I won't hate her; I'm going to stand by, ready to give her my life whenever I think she needs it."
And thus we talked, senseless creatures, sighing in the dark. But so it is with human life everywhere—a foolish chatter and in the dark a sighing.
Several days passed and yet we were not summoned to appear at court. I did not avoid Guinea, neither did I seek her. But often we were together, sometimes alone, on the oak bench under the tree, at the spring, on the old and smooth rock at the brink of the ravine; and her smile none the less bright, was warmer with sympathy. A Sunday had gone by and Alf had seen Millie, but she was riding to church with Dan Stuart.
One evening Parker sent us word to be in Purdy early the next day. And at dawn the next morning the buck-board stood ready for the journey. Mrs. Jucklin had worked nearly the night through, baking bread and roasting chickens to tide us over the trip. Alf complained at the load we were expected to carry, and this grieved her. "You know there's nothin' fitten to eat there," she said. "You know that Lum Smith stayed there three days year before last and come home and was sick for a month. Mr. Hawes, I appeal to you—make him take it."
And off we drove with our bread and roasted chickens. The women stood on the step and shouted at us, and we waved our hands at them as we turned a bend in the road. Ours was an important journey, and many of the neighbors came out as we passed along and cried words of encouragement. On a hill-top we heard the gallop of a horse, and out of a lane dashed a girl—Millie. She smiled at us, nodded as her horse jumped, and gave us a gleam of her white hand as she sped off down into the woods.