"You say you do?"
"Yes, Mr. Wrinkle come and told me. He was laughing, but he let up, for I opened his eyes. He hasn't had such a tongue-lashing since he was born. The fool, the fool—the silly fool! You mustn't mind, Alfred. You really mustn't."
"Mind?" he muttered. "My God!"
"Oh, I know!" she went on, still soothingly. "It is awful looked at from your standpoint, but that ain't the thing. We must consider the intentions of folks before we take offence. Why, Alfred, that old busybody hasn't yet got it through his head that any living man could object to a joke like that. Nothing under high heaven was ever sacred to him; you must have noticed that in the time you have known him. He'd make a jest out of the death of his closest kin. He told me once that to think anything was wrong in this world would be to deny God's goodness to mankind. When I told him just now that he had overstepped the bounds of reason and good sense in what he done, he simply wouldn't believe it. He said you knew how to give a joke and take one, and that he liked you better than any living man. The Allens are going to leave soon. Alfred, you mustn't go 'way like this—you just mustn't."
"There's nothing else to do."
"Oh yes, there is." She laid her hand on his arm, and gazed persuasively into his eyes. "You've got your duty to perform—your duty to your wife, Alfred."
"Huh, to her!" he sniffed.
"Yes, to her," Dixie went on, simply and yet eagerly. "I'm sorry for her, Alfred. To most folks she seems peculiar, and yet God made her that way just as He made you and me like we are, and, moreover, she can't help being like she is. You told me once that you didn't think she had ever quite got over her love for her first husband, but that you counted on that when you married her. Well, all the queer things which she done while you was away, that folks thought was so funny, come from her idea of her duty in that direction. If I read her right, she thinks, somehow, that she proved herself untrue to—to the dead by marrying again, and she's let it prey on her mind. But that is over with. I think she is afraid now that she went too far."
"You think so?" Henley breathed hard.
"Yes, I lost patience with her myself during it all, and give her a piece of my mind one day. If she had been plumb sure she was right she'd have got mad, but she didn't. She took it different from what I expected. She never had paid any attention to me before, but after that day she made a point o' coming to me. She never would bring up the subject again, but she'd stand and talk with as much respect as if I'd been some old person. She looked like she was ashamed, and wanted to let me know in some other way than telling me in so many words. No, you mustn't go 'way like this, Alfred. It 'ud never do. She ain't to blame for that old man's joke, and she ought not to suffer for it. She was glad you was coming back. A woman can read a woman, and she couldn't hide it. It looked to me like she is glad to get a chance to act different and do her part. If you was to go off on top of this thing it would humiliate her awfully. A great deal would be said, and it would all heap up on her as the prime cause. You are the noblest man I ever knew, Alfred, and you won't go and do as big a wrong as this would be, and in such thoughtless haste. A man never can decide on a correct course when he is upset like you are now, and you'd live to regret it. Then think of yourself. You was plumb homesick for these old mountains, and was glad to get back."