Cassandra rose and went to the door. "I'm going to make you a bed in the loom shed like I made it for the doctor. There is no bed up garret now. I emptied out all the ticks and thought I'd have them fresh filled against you come back—but I've been that busy."
Soon he followed her out. "I reckon I won't sleep thar whar that doctah have slep'. He might put a spell on me, too," he said, standing in the door of the shed and looking in on her. The night was lighter now, for the full moon had glided up over the hills, and she worked by its light streaming through the open door.
"I can't see with you standing there, Frale. I reckon you'll have to sleep here, because it's too late to fill your bed to-night."
"Oh, leave that be and come and sit here with me," he said, dropping on the step where the doctor had sat when she opened her heart to him and told him about her father. It all surged back upon her now. She could not sit there with Frale. "I'll make my bed myself, an' I'll—I'll sleep wharevah you want me to, ef hit's up on the roof or out yandah in the water trough. Come, sit."
"We'll go back on the porch, and I'll take mother's chair. I'm right tired."
"When we git in our own cabin ovah t'othah side Lone Pine, you won't have nothin' to do only tend on me," he said, drawing her to him. He led her across the open space and placed her gently in her mother's chair on the little porch.
"Now, Frale, sit down there and listen," she said, pointing to the step at her feet where Thryng had sat only a few days before to make out the lease of their land. Everything seemed to cry out to her of him to-night, but she must steel her heart against the thought.
"I'm going to talk to you straight, just what I mean, Frale. You've been talking as you pleased in there, and I 'lowed you to, I was that set back. Anyway, I'd rather talk to you alone. Frale, our promise was made before God, and you know I will keep to mine. But you must keep to yours, too. Listen at me. Mrs. Towers wrote me you had been drunk twice. Is that keeping your promise to leave whiskey alone? Is it, Frale?"
"You have somebody down thar watchin' me, an' I hain't nobody a-watchin' you," he said sullenly. She felt degraded by his words.
"Frale, do you know me all these years to think such as that of me now?"