"I see you take to that," Ann said, unconscious of the genuine, motherly delight she was betraying. "Here, child, I'll tell you what I want you to do. These spiced sausages of mine, dry as powder in the corn-shuck, are the best and sweetest flavored that ever you stuck a tooth in. They fry in their own grease almost as soon as they hit a hot pan when they are sliced thin."
"Oh no, I thank you," Virginia protested; "I really couldn't."
"But I know you can," Ann insisted, as she cut down from a rafter overhead one of the sausages and deftly sliced it in a pan already hot on the coals. "You needn't tell me you ain't hungry. I can see it in your face. Besides, do you know it's a strange fact that a woman will eat just the same in trouble as out, while a man's appetite is gone the minute he's worried?"
The girl made no further protest, and Ann soon brought some hot slices of the aromatic food, with nicely browned toast, and placed them in a plate in her lap. "How funny all this seems!" Ann ran on.
"Here I am feeding you up and feeling sorry for you when only last night I—well, I've got to talk to you, and I'm going to get it over with. I'll have to speak of the part of my life that has been the cud for every idle woman in these mountains to chaw on for many, many years, but I'm going to do it, so you will know better what you escaped last night; but, first of all, I want to ask you a straight question, and I don't mean no harm nor to be meddling where I have no business. I want to know if you love this Langdon Chester as—well, as you've always fancied you'd love the man you became a wife to."
There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the girl. Her cheeks took on color; she broke a bit of the sausage with her fork, but did not raise it to her lips.
"I'm asking you a simple, plain question," Ann reminded her.
"No, I don't," Virginia answered, haltingly;—"that is, not now, not—"
"Ah, I see!" the old woman cried. "The feeling died just as soon as you saw straight down into his real nature, just as soon as you saw that he'd treat you like a slave, that he'd abuse you, beat you, lock you up, if necessary—in fact, do anything a brute would do to gain his aims."
"I'm afraid, now, that I never really loved him," Virginia said, a catch in her voice.