V
The emotional frenzies, recurring through the day, were past, and she could speak steadily to the man, in the absence of greeting which often emphasizes the self-forgetfulness of love as well as marks the formlessness of common life: “Your supper's waitin' for you, Laban; I've had mine; you must be hungry. It's out in the shed; it's cooler there. Go round; baby's asleep.”
The man obeyed, and she heard him drop the bucket into the well, and lift it by the groaning sweep, and pour the water into the basin, and then splash himself, with murmurs of comfort, presently muffled in the towel. Her hearing followed him through his supper, and she knew he was obediently eating it, and patiently waiting for her to account for whatever was unwonted in her greeting. She loved him most of all for his boylike submission to her will and every caprice of it, but now she hardly knew how to deny his tacit question as he ventured in from the shed.
“Don't come near me, Laban,” she said with a stony quiet. “Don't touch me. I ain't your wife, any more.”
He could not speak at first; then it was like him to ask, “Why—why—What have I done, Nancy?”
“You, you poor soul?” she answered. “Nothing but good, all your days! He's come back.”
He knew whom she meant, but he had to ask, “Joseph Dylks? Why I thought he was—”
“Don't say it! It's murder! I don't want you to have his blood on you too. Oh, if he was only dead! Yes, yes! I have a right to wish it! Oh, God be merciful to me, a sinner!”
“When—when—how did you know it, Nancy?”