Part 17 (2/2)

”You want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that old miserly Isom!” she stormed. ”You're just as bad as he is; you ain't got a soft spot in your heart.”

”Yes, I'd rather see you stay here with Isom and do a n.i.g.g.e.r woman's work, like you have been doing ever since you married him, than let you go away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you'd have to face with him would kill you quicker than work, and you'd suffer a thousand times more sorrow.”

”What do you know about it?” she sneered. ”You never loved anybody.

That's the way with you religious fools--you don't get any fun out of life yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else's. Well, you'll not spoil mine, I tell you. I'll go to Morgan this very night, and you can't stop me!”

”Well, we'll see about that, Ollie,” he told her, showing a little temper. ”I told him that I'd keep you here if I had to tie you, and I'll do that, too, if I have to. Isom----”

”Isom, Isom!” she mocked. ”Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell the old fool what you saw--tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, and tell him more! Tell the old devil I hate him, and always did hate him; tell him I've got out of bed in the middle of the night more than once to get the ax and kill him in his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead and in h.e.l.l, where he belongs, and I'm sorry I didn't send him there! What do I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneaking spy!”

”I'll go with you to the road if you want to see if he's there,” Joe offered.

Ollie's fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood had divested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke to her now as he would have reasoned with a child.

”No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or something like that, and he went away,” said she. ”You couldn't scare him, he wouldn't run from you. Tomorrow he'll send me word, and I'll go to him in spite of you and Isom and everything else. I don't care--I don't care--you're mean to me, too! you're as mean as you can be!”

She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her arm to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend of her elbow. Her shoulders heaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury which she seemed to think she bore.

Joe put his hand on her shoulder.

”Don't take on that way about it, Ollie,” said he.

”Oh, oh!” she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now; ”why couldn't you have been kind to me; why couldn't you have said a good word to me sometimes? I didn't have a friend in the world, and I was so lonesome and tired and--and--and--everything!”

Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How could he tell her that he had not understood her striving and yearning to reach him, and that at last understanding, he had been appalled by the enormity of his own heart's desire. He said nothing for a little while, but took her by one tear-wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the table he stopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with comforting touch.

”Never mind, Ollie,” said he at last; ”you go to bed now and don't think any more about going away with Morgan. If I thought it was best for your peace and happiness for you to go, I'd step out of the way at once. But he'd drag you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for they don't have that kind of women here. Morgan isn't as good a man as Isom is, with all his hard ways and stinginess. If he's honest and honorable, he can wait for you till Isom dies. He'll not last more than ten or fifteen years longer, and you'll be young even then, Ollie. I don't suppose anybody ever gets too old to be happy any more than they get too old to be sad.”

”No, I don't suppose they do, Joe,” she sighed.

She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder after a storm.

”I'll put out the light, Ollie,” said he. ”You go on to bed.”

”Oh, Joe, Joe!” said she in a little pleading, meaningless way; a little way of reproach and softness.

She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her subsiding pa.s.sion in them, and looked yearningly into his. Ollie suddenly found herself feeling small and young, penitent and frail, in the presence of this quickly developed man. His strength seemed to rise above her, and spread round her, and warm her in its protecting folds. There was comfort in him, and promise.

The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down from the first mother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the s.e.x as the instinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was primitive in her pa.s.sions and pains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose and trembling.

”If you'd be good to me, Joe; if you'd only be good and kind, I could stay,” she said.

Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding plea. He put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way. She was very near him then, and her small hand, so lately cold and tear-damp, was warm within his.

She threw her head back in expectant att.i.tude; her yearning eyes seemed to be dragging him to her lips.

”I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I know how to be,” he promised.

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