"You don't looked tired—you look worried, Ann. I know you; you needn't try to hide your feelings from me. We are both women. When you are suffering the most you beat about the bush more than any other time. That's why this is going to be so hard for me."
"It's going to be hard for you, then?" Ann's impulsive voice sounded hollow; her face had suddenly grown pale. "I know what that means. It means that Joe set his foot down against me and—"
"I wish I could tell you all, every blessed word, Ann, but you've already had too much trouble in this life, and I feel like I was such a big, ignorant fool to get this thing up and make such a mess of it."
Ann climbed over the fence and stood in the road beside her companion. Her face was twisted awry by some force bound up within her. She laid her big, toil-worn hand on Mrs. Waycroft's shoulder.
"Now, looky here," she said, harshly. "I'm going to hear every word and know everything that took place. You must not leave out one single item. I've got the right to know it all, and I will. Now, you start in."
"I hardly know how, Ann," the other woman faltered. "I didn't know folks in this world could have so little human pity or forgiveness."
"You go ahead, do you hear me? You blaze away. I can stand under fire. I'm no kitten. Go ahead, I tell you."
"Well, Ann, I met Joe and Nettie day before yesterday at bush-arbor meeting. Joe was there, and looked slouchier and more downhearted than he ever did in his life, and Nettie was there with the young man she is about to marry—a tall, serious-faced, parson-like young man, a Mr. Lawson. Well, after meeting, while he was off feeding his horse, I made a break and got the girl by herself. Well, Ann, from all I could gather, she—well, she didn't look at it favorably."
"Stop!" Ann cried, peremptorily, "I don't want any shirking. I want to hear actually every word she said. This thing may never come up between you and me again while the sun shines, and I want the truth. You are not toting fair. I want the facts—every word the girl said, every look, every bat of the eye, every sneer. I'm prepared. You talk plain—plain, I tell you!"
"I see I'll have to," sighed Mrs. Waycroft, her eyes averted from the awful stare in Ann's eyes. "The truth is, Ann, Nettie's been thinking all her life, till just about a month ago, that you were—dead. Joe Boyd told her you was dead and buried, and got all the neighbors to keep the truth from her. It leaked out when she got engaged to young Lawson; his folks, Ann, they are as hide-bound and narrow as the worst hard-shell Baptists here—his folks raised objections and tried to break it off."