"It was while you was away, Alfred," she continued, "and—and there was so much talk about what I was doing at that time, you remember, to—to show respect for Dick's memory. For a girl as young as she is, she said some powerful strong things. She thought I wasn't acting right toward you, and told me so to my face. I went on with my plans, but I've often thought of her advice. You may have noticed that I hain't talked as much about the—the monument as I did, and I haven't been to see it as often as I used to. Dixie Hart made me look at it from the outside to some extent, and with that I began to be more considerate of you. I saw you wasn't the same as you was at first—I might say, as you was all along when you and Dick was both taking me out, and as you was—for that matter—just before and after me and you got married. In fact, Alfred, you are getting to be a sort o' puzzle to me. Even to-night at supper you seemed to be in some sort of far-off dream or other. You'd lift up a fork or a spoon and hold it a long time before you'd put it in your mouth, and once I caught you gazing straight at me with the blankest look I ever saw on a human face. You don't seem the same. I don't mean that you haven't got a healthy look, for that would bother me a lot, but you are—well, you are just different."
"Don't you worry," Henley heard himself saying, aghast at the cliffs and chasms ahead of him. "Don't worry about me if I seem to have my mind off at times. I've made some trades lately, and got the best end of 'em. I'm a natural trader—a born trader, Hettie. They say it is like a mild form of gambling. Just yesterday I made a deal with an old chap—"
"I don't want to talk about trading and swapping, and the like," the woman broke in, firmly. "Besides, no sort of ordinary business ever made a man look like you've looked lately. You used to be sorter active and nervous, but now you set and brood with an odd, reddish look on your face. It ain't natural. It looks like you've resigned yourself to—to something that you didn't exactly like before, and it don't please me to see you that way. Pa's noticed it and mentioned it two or three times."
"There's nothing in the world the matter with me," Henley declared, actually alarmed at the incongruity of his position.
"Alfred," the woman said, contritely, and she bent forward and peered up into his face, "you are a sight better man than I am a woman, and—"
"Shucks!"
"You may say shucks if you want to, but wait till I get through. I reckon, as women go, in the general run, I'm a queer sort of female. I never was just like other girls. For one thing, I always wanted what was out of my reach; not getting a thing, or even having doubts about it, always made me want it more than anything else. I reckon that is why Dick kind o' fascinated me: the girls was all after him, and he seemed a sort of prize to be had at any cost. Even after we was married, as maybe you know, he kept me worried with his attentions to some of the old crowd of girls. But enough of that. When he died and you come back, begging, as you did, to have me consider you, I finally give in and took you. But that wasn't all. I had stood up before a preacher in the house of God and agreed to be your wife and helpmeet, but, as I now see it, I didn't do my duty by you. I made the mistake, I reckon, of thinking too much about what I owed to the dead and gone, and I went so far as to do things in public that actually driv' you away from home and caused folks to laugh at you and make remarks. Dixie Hart was right; I wasn't toting fair with you, and I want to tell you to-night, Alfred, that I see my error, and—and I am plumb sorry."
He turned upon her resolutely. She was looking down, and he fancied she was about to shed such tears as she had often shed early in their married life when Dick Wrinkle's name was mentioned. He had none of the old chivalrous sympathy which such a demonstration had once evoked, nor any of the old indulgence for a love which he had hoped to see die, and yet, just from his passionate contact with Dixie Hart, he was full of comprehension and pity for his wife's plight—at least, as he now saw it.
"Listen to me, Hettie," he began, and his voice shook with deep feeling. "You've been right all along. Don't you bother about that. It was me that was crooked. In this life folks don't love in the highest and best way but once—not but once in a lifetime. Dick Wrinkle was your first and only abiding fancy. The feeling that made you turn me down and take him when you was a girl and I was a big blockhead of a boy was born of God in heaven. I was the one that was making a mistake when I come and begged you to marry me while that pure thing was still alive in your heart. A love like that never dies; it is too sweet and glorious to die. I see now, too, that you was plumb right about wanting to take care of his mammy and daddy, and about wanting that sermon preached, and about erecting a lasting monument to commemorate his name. You had to do all them things because they was part and parcel of you yourself, and the constancy God planted in you. I can say honestly that I'm glad you still love him. You wouldn't be a high sort of a woman if you did change. Death can't separate folks that love; they go on and on—side by side, hand in hand, heart to heart—through all eternity."
She actually gasped. She rose, and stood staring toward the door, a deep frown on her face; she shrugged her shoulders; she clinched her fists; she rapped the ground sharply with her foot; then she slowly bent down over him, resting her thin left hand on his broad shoulder while she peered with a stare of would-be incredulity into his enraptured face.