Barney opened the door and started when he saw who was there.  “Is it you, mother?” he said, involuntarily; then his face hardened like hers, and he waited.  The mother and son confronted each other looked more alike than ever.

Deborah opened her mouth to speak twice before she made a sound.  She stood upright and unyielding, but her face was ghastly, and she drew her breath in long, husky gasps.  Finally she spoke, and Barney started again at her voice.

“I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry Rebecca,” she said.

“Mother, what do you mean?”

“I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry Rebecca.”

“Mother!”

“Rebecca is gone.  I turned her out of the house this mornin’.  I don’t know where she is.  Go and find her, and make William Berry marry her.”

“Mother, before the Lord, I don’t know what you mean!” Barney cried out.  “You didn’t turn Rebecca out of the house in all this storm!  What did you turn her out for?  Where is she?”

“I don’t know where she is.  I turned her out because I wouldn’t have her in the house.  You brought it all on us; if you hadn’t acted so I shouldn’t have felt as I did about her marryin’.  Now you can go an’ find her, and get William Berry an’ make him marry her.  I ain’t got anything more to do with it.”

Deborah turned, and went out of the yard.

“Mother!” Barney called after her, but she kept on.  He stood for a second looking after her retreating figure, struggling sternly with the snow-drifts, meeting the buffets of the wind with her head up; then he went in, and put on his boots and his overcoat.

Barney had heard not one word of the village gossip, and the revelation in his mother’s words had come to him with a great shock.  As he went up the hill to the old tavern he could hardly believe that he had understood her rightly.  Once he paused and turned, and was half inclined to go back.  He was as pure-minded as a girl, and almost as ignorant; he could not believe that he knew what she meant.

Barney hesitated again before the store; then he opened the great clanging door and went in.  A farmer, in a blue frock stiff with snow, had just completed his purchases and was going out.  William, who had been waiting upon him, was quite near the door behind the counter.  At the farther end of the store could be seen the red glow of a stove and Tommy Ray’s glistening fair had.  Some one else, who had shrunk out of sight when Barney entered, was also there.

Barney saw no one but William.  He looked at him, and all his bewilderment gathered itself into a point.  He felt a sudden fierce impulse to spring at him.

William looked at Barney, and his faced changed in a minute.  He took up his hat, and came around the counter.  “Did you want to see me?” he said, hoarsely.

“Come outside,” said Barney.  And the two men went out, and stood in the snow before the store.