She did not answer a word. There is something confounding in the sudden humiliation of a man who has always been almost contemptuously dominant.
He looked at his watch. “I must make haste, or they will be in bed,” he said. “Make some sort of an excuse to Aunt Nancy for me. And when you want to come back, let me know, and I will meet you at the depot or come after you.”
He started, and she walked beside him down the path to the road. He seemed hardly able to hold his head up.
She walked nearer, and slipped her hand in his arm, speaking softly: “I said a little while ago that the pain of years cannot be forgotten in a moment. But I was wrong. I think it may.”
He looked at her quickly, but said nothing, and they reached the bars. Neither made any motion to let down the pole. They leaned on it a minute in silence.
“The fact is, Bessie,” the husband burst forth, “I've been like a man possessed by an evil spirit. I'm sorry, and that is all I can say.”
“No matter, Jack! Let it all go!” his wife exclaimed, clasping her hands on his arm, and holding it close to him. “You weren't to blame!” (Oh! wonderful feminine consistency!) “Let's forget everything unpleasant, and remember only the good. How you have had to work and study, poor, dear Jack! You must rest now, and never get into the old drudging way again.”
Aunt Nancy raked up the fire, and put down the window, looking out now and then at the couple who leaned on the bar below. Each time she looked, their forms were less distinct in the twilight. “That's just the way they used to do fifteen years ago,” she muttered contentedly.
She sat a few minutes waiting, but they did not come in. Aunt Nancy sighed and laughed too. “It beats all how women do change their minds,” she said. “I did think that Bessie would hold out longer. Well, I may as well go to bed.”
By-and-by she heard them come into the kitchen.