Tilly laughed cheerily. "You backed out to-night; you know you did," she bantered him. "You said you were going to kiss the bride, but failed to do it."
"I wanted to, mighty bad, but I was afraid they would all think I was powerful cheeky." Then the contractor fell into talk with the negro, and John heard Tilly sigh.
"What is the matter?" he inquired.
"Oh, I'm sorry for mother," she explained. "I was just thinking that the poor old thing will get up as usual in the morning before daylight and start in to do my work as well as hers. Father won't hire any one to help her and she will have a hard time from now on."
John found himself unable to properly respond, for he didn't care how hard his mother-in-law worked. He would see to it, however, that Tilly should have a rest from the slave-toil which had been her lot since childhood.
It was nine o'clock when the station was reached, and they got down to await the train. Only the station-master and a switchman with a lantern swinging in his hand were in sight. Cavanaugh paid the negro, and with a low bow and scraping of the feet he got into his trap and drove away.
They had not long to wait. From the distance of a mile they heard the whistle of the approaching locomotive, and in a few minutes it was slowing up at the long, unroofed platform.
"You two go sit in the chair-car," Cavanaugh directed. "I've got a cigar, and I'll try the smoker. I'll come back and see you before we get to Chattanooga."
John led Tilly to the luxurious car in question and helped her in. How strange it was! But now for the first time, as he saw her seated in the big revolving-chair in the almost empty car, she seemed all at once to be in reality his wife. He put his bag and hers into the brass rack overhead and adjusted the footstool so that she might rest her feet on it. No living psychologist could have fathomed his emotions. That had become his which seemed to belong to some outside, ethereal existence.
The train started. John took a chair facing Tilly. When he was not at work his hands seemed extraneous members, and they now hung down between his knees as limply as if they had lost all animation.