“You mean to tell her she’s got to go-at once?” he faltered out, in terror of letting his wife complete her sentence.

As if trying to make him see reason she replied impartially:  “The girl will be over from Bettsbridge to-morrow, and I presume she’s got to have somewheres to sleep.”

Ethan looked at her with loathing.  She was no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding.  It was the sense of his helplessness that sharpened his antipathy.  There had never been anything in her that one could appeal to; but as long as he could ignore and command he had remained indifferent.  Now she had mastered him and he abhorred her.  Mattie was her relation, not his:  there were no means by which he could compel her to keep the girl under her roof.  All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way.  She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others.  For a moment such a flame of hate rose in him that it ran down his arm and clenched his fist against her.  He took a wild step forward and then stopped.

“You’re-you’re not coming down?” he said in a bewildered voice.

“No.  I guess I’ll lay down on the bed a little while,” she answered mildly; and he turned and walked out of the room.

In the kitchen Mattie was sitting by the stove, the cat curled up on her knees.  She sprang to her feet as Ethan entered and carried the covered dish of meat-pie to the table.

“I hope Zeena isn’t sick?” she asked.

“No.”

She shone at him across the table.  “Well, sit right down then.  You must be starving.”  She uncovered the pie and pushed it over to him.  So they were to have one more evening together, her happy eyes seemed to say!

He helped himself mechanically and began to eat; then disgust took him by the throat and he laid down his fork.

Mattie’s tender gaze was on him and she marked the gesture.

“Why, Ethan, what’s the matter?  Don’t it taste right?”

“Yes-it’s first-rate.  Only I-” He pushed his plate away, rose from his chair, and walked around the table to her side.  She started up with frightened eyes.

“Ethan, there’s something wrong!  I knew there was!”

She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted butterflies.

“What is it-what is it?” she stammered; but he had found her lips at last and was drinking unconsciousness of everything but the joy they gave him.

She lingered a moment, caught in the same strong current; then she slipped from him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled.  Her look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her drowning in a dream:  “You can’t go, Matt!  I’ll never let you!”