"Oh...."
"I have been married."
"Oh...."
"But am now a widow."
"Oh...."
"But not by death."
"Oh...."
"No; he is not dead—at least he wasn't a month ago." She shrugged her shoulders, and went on now somewhat doggedly. "I am a grass widow, and you know what that means...."
He made no answer; but she knew he heard her, and was listening. She went on as only an unsuccessful and unhappy woman could. "Yes, when a woman marries a man that she loves, and gives to him the best that's in her, and, after years, is forced to give up the fight, her very heart, for a piece of paper marked 'divorce,' she is never the same woman she was, and might have continued to be. There are those who say: 'Oh, I don't care;' but I'm going to tell you, they do. The woman lives on apparently gay, but her heart is dead within her." For a long time now, there was silence. Presently, she spoke again.
"I am living entirely now for my little boy. He is all I have, and I am willing, I feel, to slave until the skin falls from my fingers, that he may have his chance. I am planning to graduate him as early as possible, and place him in a good northern school in the study of medicine."