"Don't! don't!" she said. "If you knew—"
"I've told him everything, Virginia," Ann broke in. "I had to. I couldn't see my dear boy suffering like he was, when—"
"You know—" Virginia began, aghast, "you know—"
"About you and Chester?" King said, with a light laugh. "Yes, I know all about it, and it made me think you the grandest, most self-sacrificing little girl in all the world. So you thought I was dead? That was all gossip. It was only a quarrel that amounted to nothing. I understand, now that he is sober, that Chester is heartily ashamed of himself."
Half an hour afterwards Ann stood at the gate and saw them walking together towards Virginia's home. She watched them till they were lost from her sight in the dusk, then she went back into the house. She stood over the low fire for a moment, then said: "I won't get any supper ready. I couldn't eat a bite. Meat and bread couldn't shove this lump out of my throat. It's pretty, pretty, pretty to see those two together that way. I believe they have got the sort of thing the Almighty really meant love to be. I know I never got that kind, though, as a girl, I dreamt of nothing else—nothing from morning till night but that one thing, and yet here I am this way—this way!"
[XLII]
The next morning the weather was as balmy as spring. Ann had taken all the coverings from her beds and hung them along the fence to catch the purifying rays of the sun. Her rag-carpet was stretched out on the ground ready to be beaten. She was occupied in sweeping the bare floor of her sitting-room when a shadow fell across the threshold. Looking up, she saw a tall, lean man, very ill-clad, his tattered hat in hand, his shoes broken at the toes and showing the wearer's bare feet.
"It's me, Ann," Boyd said. "I couldn't stay away any longer. I hope you won't drive me off, anyway, before I've got out what I come to say."
She turned pale as she leaned her broom against the wall and began to roll her sleeves down her fat arms towards her wrists. "Well, I wasn't looking for you," she managed to say.
"I reckon not, Ann," he returned, a certain wistful expression in his voice and strangely softened face; "but I had to come. As I say—I had to come and speak to you, anyway."