Jeff loved very much this day while they were wandering.  He almost forgot that he had any trouble with him still inside him.  Jeff loved to be there with Melanctha Herbert.  She was always so sympathetic to him for the way she listened to everything he found and told her, the way she felt his joy in all this being, the way she never said she wanted anything different from the way they had it.  It was certainly a busy and a happy day, this their first long day of really wandering.

Later they were tired, and Melanctha sat down on the ground, and Jeff threw himself his full length beside her.  Jeff lay there, very quiet, and then he pressed her hand and kissed it and murmured to her, “You certainly are very good to me, Melanctha.”  Melanctha felt it very deep and did not answer.  Jeff lay there a long time, looking up above him.  He was counting all the little leaves he saw above him.  He was following all the little clouds with his eyes as they sailed past him.  He watched all the birds that flew high beyond him, and all the time Jeff knew he must tell to Melanctha what it was he knew now, that which Jane Harden, just a week ago, had told him.  He knew very well that for him it was certain that he had to say it.  It was hard, but for Jeff Campbell the only way to lose it was to say it, the only way to know Melanctha really, was to tell her all the struggle he had made to know her, to tell her so she could help him to understand his trouble better, to help him so that never again he could have any way to doubt her.

Jeff lay there a long time, very quiet, always looking up above him, and yet feeling very close now to Melanctha.  At last he turned a little toward her, took her hands closer in his to make him feel it stronger, and then very slowly, for the words came very hard for him, slowly he began his talk to her.

“Melanctha,” began Jeff, very slowly, “Melanctha, it ain’t right I shouldn’t tell you why I went away last week and almost never got the chance again to see you.  Jane Harden was sick, and I went in to take care of her.  She began to tell everything she ever knew about you.  She didn’t know how well now I know you.  I didn’t tell her not to go on talking.  I listened while she told me everything about you.  I certainly found it very hard with what she told me.  I know she was talking truth in everything she said about you.  I knew you had been free in your ways, Melanctha, I knew you liked to get excitement the way I always hate to see the colored people take it.  I didn’t know, till I heard Jane Harden say it, you had done things so bad, Melanctha.  When Jane Harden told me, I got very sick, Melanctha.  I couldn’t bear hardly, to think, perhaps I was just another like them to you, Melanctha.  I was wrong not to trust you perhaps, Melanctha, but it did make things very ugly to me.  I try to be honest to you, Melanctha, the way you say you really want it from me.”

Melanctha drew her hands from Jeff Campbell.  She sat there, and there was deep scorn in her anger.