And so Jeff forgot himself for awhile in his reading, and Melanctha was sleeping.  And then Melanctha woke up and she was screaming.  “Oh, Jeff, I thought you gone away for always from me.  Oh, Jeff, never now go away no more from me.  Oh, Jeff, sure, sure, always be just so good to me”

There was a weight in Jeff Campbell from now on, always with him, that he could never lift out from him, to feel easy.  He always was trying not to have it in him and he always was trying not to let Melanctha feel it, with him, but it was always there inside him.  Now Jeff Campbell always was serious, and dark, and heavy, and sullen, and he would often sit a long time with Melanctha without moving.

“You certainly never have forgiven to me, what I said to you that night, Jeff, now have you?” Melanctha asked him after a long silence, late one evening with him.  “It ain’t ever with me a question like forgiving, Melanctha, I got in me.  It’s just only what you are feeling for me, makes any difference to me.  I ain’t ever seen anything since in you, makes me think you didn’t mean it right, what you said about not thinking now any more I was good, to make it right for you to be really caring so very much to love me.”

“I certainly never did see no man like you, Jeff.  You always wanting to have it all clear out in words always, what everybody is always feeling.  I certainly don’t see a reason, why I should always be explaining to you what I mean by what I am just saying.  And you ain’t got no feeling ever for me, to ask me what I meant, by what I was saying when I was so tired, that night.  I never know anything right I was saying.”  “But you don’t ever tell me now, Melanctha, so I really hear you say it, you don’t mean it the same way, the way you said it to me.”  “Oh Jeff, you so stupid always to me and always just bothering with your always asking to me.  And I don’t never any way remember ever anything I been saying to you, and I am always my head, so it hurts me it half kills me, and my heart jumps so, sometimes I think I die so when it hurts me, and I am so blue always, I think sometimes I take something to just kill me, and I got so much to bother thinking always and doing, and I got so much to worry, and all that, and then you come and ask me what I mean by what I was just saying to you.  I certainly don’t know, Jeff, when you ask me.  Seems to me, Jeff, sometimes you might have some kind of a right feeling to be careful to me.”  “You ain’t got no right Melanctha Herbert,” flashed out Jeff through his dark, frowning anger, “you certainly ain’t got no right always to be using your being hurt and being sick, and having pain, like a weapon, so as to make me do things it ain’t never right for me to be doing for you.  You certainly ain’t got no right to be always holding your pain out to show me.”  “What do you mean by them words, Jeff Campbell.”  “I certainly do mean them just like I am saying them, Melanctha.  You act always, like I been responsible