"Somewhere or other she waits for you," said Greeba. "Depend on that."
"Ay, somewhere or other," he said.
"So don't lose heart, Jason," she said; "don't lose heart."
"I don't," he said, "not I;" and yet again he laughed. But, growing serious in a moment, he said, "And did you leave home and kindred and come out to this desolate place only that you might live under the same roof with your husband?"
"My home was his home," said Greeba, "my kindred his kindred, and where he was there had I to be."
"And have you waited through these two long years," he said, "for the day and the hour when you might reveal yourself to him?"
"I could have waited for my husband," said Greeba, "through twice the seven long years that Jacob waited for Rachel."
He paused a moment, and then said, "No, no, I don't lose heart. Somewhere or other, somewhere or other—that's the way of it." Then he laughed louder than ever, and every hollow note of his voice went through Greeba like a knife. But in the empty chamber of his heart he was crying in his despair, "My God! how she loves him! How she loves him!"
III.
Half-an-hour later, when the winter's day was done, and the candles had been lighted, Greeba went in to the priest, where he sat in his room alone, to say that a stranger was asking to see him.