“You’d better go home or you won’t be in any condition to walk there,” said Abel angrily.  “It’s down right indecent to see a man of your age rocking about in the road.”

Turning quickly in his tracks, he went over the log again and on to the loneliness of the meadows beyond.

“And she went as white as a haunt,” he muttered under his breath.

CHAPTER VIII

A GREAT PASSION IN A HUMBLE PLACE

Time does not stand still even for the unhappily married.  A man may have wedded the wrong woman, but he comes down to his breakfast and goes about his work as punctually as if he had wedded the right one.  To Abel, with the thought of Molly throbbing like a fever in his brain, it was still possible to grind his grist and to subtract carefully the eighth part as a toll—­while Judy, hushed in day dreams, went on making butter in a habit of absent-minded tranquillity.  Life seldom deals in cataclysmic situations—­at least on the surface.  Living side by side in a married intimacy for months, Abel and Judy were still strangers to each other.  Their bodies touched while their souls were crucified at an immeasurable distance.

To Sarah, who embraced Christian theology while she practised religiously the doctrine of the physical basis of life, there had seemed no cause for disturbance, until Judy entered the kitchen on a stormy evening in June, and turned a pair of inflamed eyes on the face of her mother-in-law.  The young woman wore her wedding dress, now nearly seven months old, and clasped in her hand a neatly bound prayer-book which had been the gift of the Reverend Orlando.  For more than six months she had suffered silently under Sarah’s eyes, which saw only outward and visible afflictions.  Now, at the first sign of quivering flesh, the older woman was at once on the alert.

“Whar you goin’, Judy?” she inquired.  “You ain’t thinkin’ about traipsin’ out of doors on a night like this, are you?”

“Archie promised to take me to the Bible class, an’ he hasn’t come back,” replied Judy, while her face worked convulsively.  “I’ve waited for him since half past seven.”

“If that don’t beat all!” exclaimed Sarah.  “Why, it’s thunderin’ like Jedgment Day.  Can’t you hear it?”

“But I promised Mr. Mullen I wouldn’t let anything prevent me,” returned Judy, growing sullen.  “Archie said he’d be back here without fail, an’ I know he’s stayed to supper over at the Halloweens’.”

“Isn’t it foolish to wear your best hat out in the rain?” asked Blossom, not without surprise, for her sister-in-law had developed into something of a slattern.

“I reckon hats are made to be worn,” retorted Judy.  As a rule her temper was placid enough, but Archie’s defection, after she had given him her best neck-tie for the purpose of binding him to his promise, had overstrained the tension of her nerves.  “Where’s Abner?  He used to go regular.”