“Oh, Ned ain’t much at steering.  I guess I can take you down all right!” he said disdainfully.

He was aware that he was “talking big,” like Denis Eady; but his reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflection with which she had said of the engaged couple “They’re so happy!” made the words sound as if she had been thinking of herself and him.

“The elm is dangerous, though.  It ought to be cut down,” she insisted.

“Would you be afraid of it, with me?”

“I told you I ain’t the kind to be afraid” she tossed back, almost indifferently; and suddenly she began to walk on with a rapid step.

These alterations of mood were the despair and joy of Ethan Frome.  The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in the branches.  The fact that he had no right to show his feelings, and thus provoke the expression of hers, made him attach a fantastic importance to every change in her look and tone.  Now he thought she understood him, and feared; now he was sure she did not, and despaired.  To-night the pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward despair, and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady.  He mounted School House Hill at her side and walked on in silence till they reached the lane leading to the saw-mill; then the need of some definite assurance grew too strong for him.

“You’d have found me right off if you hadn’t gone back to have that last reel with Denis,” he brought out awkwardly.  He could not pronounce the name without a stiffening of the muscles of his throat.

“Why, Ethan, how could I tell you were there?”

“I suppose what folks say is true,” he jerked out at her, instead of answering.

She stopped short, and he felt, in the darkness, that her face was lifted quickly to his.  “Why, what do folks say?”

“It’s natural enough you should be leaving us” he floundered on, following his thought.

“Is that what they say?” she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden drop of her sweet treble:  “You mean that Zeena-ain’t suited with me any more?” she faltered.

Their arms had slipped apart and they stood motionless, each seeking to distinguish the other’s face.

“I know I ain’t anything like as smart as I ought to be,” she went on, while he vainly struggled for expression.  “There’s lots of things a hired girl could do that come awkward to me still-and I haven’t got much strength in my arms.  But if she’d only tell me I’d try.  You know she hardly ever says anything, and sometimes I can see she ain’t suited, and yet I don’t know why.”  She turned on him with a sudden flash of indignation.  “You’d ought to tell me, Ethan Frome-you’d ought to!  Unless you want me to go too-”

Unless he wanted her to go too!  The cry was balm to his raw wound.  The iron heavens seemed to melt and rain down sweetness.  Again he struggled for the all-expressive word, and again, his arm in hers, found only a deep “Come along.”