“Aunt Keziah, you’re my anchor to windward, as they say down here.  If I lost you, goodness knows where I should drift.  Don’t you ever talk of leaving me again.”

“Thank you, John.  I’m glad you want me to stay.  I won’t leave yet awhile; never—­unless I have to.”

“Why should you ever have to?”

“Well, I don’t know.  Yes, I do know, too.  John, I had another letter t’other day.”

“You did?  From—­from that man?”

“Yup, from—­” For a moment it seemed as if she were about to pronounce her husband’s name, something she had never done in his presence; but if she thought of it, she changed her mind.

“From him,” she said.  “He wanted money, of course; he always does.  But that wa’n’t the worst.  The letter was from England, and in it he wrote that he was gettin’ sick of knockin’ around and guessed he’d be for comin’ to the States pretty soon and huntin’ me up.  Said what was the use of havin’ an able-bodied wife if she couldn’t give her husband a home.”

“The scoundrel!”

“Yes, I know what he is, maybe full as well as you do.  That’s why I spoke of leavin’ you.  If that man comes to Trumet, I’ll go, sure as death.”

“No, no.  Aunt Keziah, you must free yourself from him.  No power on earth can compel you to longer support such a—­”

“None on earth, no.  But it’s my punishment and I’ve got to put up with it.  I married him with my eyes wide open, done it to spite the—­the other, as much as anything, and I must bear the burden.  But I tell you this, John:  if he comes here, to this town, where I’ve been respected and considered a decent woman, if he comes here, I go—­somewhere, anywhere that’ll be out of the sight of them that know me.  And wherever I go he shan’t be with me.  That I won’t stand!  I’d rather die, and I hope I do.  Don’t talk to me any more now—­don’t!  I can’t stand it.”

She hurried out of the room.  Later, as the minister passed through the dining room on his way to the door, she spoke to him again.

“John,” she said, “I didn’t say what I meant to when I broke in on you just now.  I meant to tell you about Grace.  I knew you’d like to know and wouldn’t ask.  She’s bearin’ up well, poor girl.  She thought the world of Nat, even though she might not have loved him in the way that—­”

“What’s that?  What are you saying, Aunt Keziah?”

“I mean—­well, I mean that he’d always been like an own brother to her and she cared a lot for him.”

“But you said she didn’t love him.”

“Did I?  That was a slip of the tongue, maybe.  But she bears it well and I don’t think she gives up hope.  I try not to, for her sake, and I try not to show her how I feel.”

She sewed vigorously for a few moments.  Then she said: 

“She’s goin’ away, Gracie is.”

“Going away?”

“Yup.  She’s goin’ to stay with a relation of the Hammonds over in Connecticut for a spell.  I coaxed her into it.  Stayin’ here at home with all this suspense and with Hannah Poundberry’s tongue droppin’ lamentations like kernels out of a corn sheller, is enough to kill a healthy batch of kittens with nine lives apiece.  She didn’t want to go; felt that she must stay here and wait for news; but I told her we’d get news to her as soon as it come, and she’s goin’.”