He did not answer immediately. He had not yet completely realised that this was Sheila whom he had been eager to marry, and then when he understood at last that this indeed was she, something inside him kept exclaiming, "But she's got a baby!" and he wondered why she was feeding it.
"Are you married, Sheila?" he said.
She laughed at him, and answered, "That's a quare question to be askin', an' me with this in my arms!" She looked at the baby as she spoke.
"I didn't know you were married," he replied. "I was coming up to the farm to see you!"
"I've been married this year past," she said.
"I didn't know," he murmured. "No one told me!..."
And suddenly he saw that her face was coarser than it had been when he loved her. Her hair was tied untidily about her head, and he could see that her hands, as she held the child, were rough and red, and that her nails were broken and misshapen. Her boots were loosely laced, and she seemed to be sprawling....
"I'm all throughother," she said, as if she realised what was in his mind and was anxious to excuse herself to him. "This wee tory hardly gives me a minute's peace, an' my aunt's not so well as she was!"
He nodded his head, but did not speak.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" he asked after a while.