Thrusting his hat down to his very ears, he strode from the house, swinging the screen door behind him so hard that it broke and the split corner fell out and hung dangling by the net, which kept the splintered frame from falling to the ground.

Elizabeth closed the panelled door to keep out the flies, and turned quietly to the bedroom for her bonnet. She spoke to Hepsie, who had heard the entire argument, as she pa.s.sed through the kitchen, asking her to keep Jack for her, and walked through the barnyard, through the wet pasture, and on to her haunt in the willows, where she could think undisturbed.

John was still standing in the harness room of the barn when he heard the door close behind Elizabeth, and saw her coming that way.

Elizabeth was coming to the barn! He gave a start of surprise. Even while he had not given up all thought of her coming to his terms, he wondered at her giving in so promptly. John drew back so that she should not see that he was watching her. When she did not immediately appear he thought with a smile of satisfaction that she had stopped, not finding it easy to approach after the haughty manner in which she had just dismissed his demands. He waited a moment, considering terms of capitulation, and then walked unconcernedly out.

The truth broke upon him. She had pa.s.sed the barn, she was on her way to the willows, not to him. Something in John Hunter sickened.

Up to the moment when John had seen his wife coming toward him he had been fully prepared to stand by the terms of dissolution which he had made. But in that moment when he watched her recede from him in the direction of the willows, the tide of his feelings turned; he wished he had not issued his ultimatum; he wished he had not put it to the test.

The triumph of receiving her submission had been his first thought when he had seen her come from the house, and it had been a sweet morsel while it had lasted, but when he had seen her going from him toward the willows, he suddenly realized that triumph had slipped from his grasp. Suddenly he desired to possess her. Not since the first six weeks of their acquaintance had Elizabeth looked so fair to him. He had put her away! A great sob rose up in him. He had said that he would go back to his mother, and his fate was sealed. He had gone to the barn to saddle his horse and start on the instant for Mitch.e.l.l County and the cattle he had chosen as his portion, but all at once the glamour of his going died away and he saw the choice he had made. To crown his cheerless flight, Jack was at Nathan Hornby's, and pride would not let him follow the child up even when he was going away forever. Nate Hornby had had something to do with this business of Elizabeth getting the money, and he had also had something to do with her determination to take the money out of his, her husband's, hands, and he, John Hunter, would not humble himself before him. Long before Elizabeth's return from the willows her husband was away.

Great was Elizabeth Hunter's surprise when John did not appear at supper.

She had not taken him seriously; he had always bl.u.s.tered, and while she had realized that he was angry enough to make his word good, she had supposed that he would make a division of the property if he intended to leave her, and make arrangements for the child. She did not believe that he was gone, and answered the observations and questions of the hired men by saying that he had probably gone for the baby. In fact, having once said it, it sounded plausible to her, and she waited till far into the night for the sound of his horse's footsteps.

The suspicion which at midnight was yet a suspicion was by morning a certainty, but Elizabeth kept her own counsel, and when Nathan brought Jack at noon she did not speak of her husband's absence. The second day the hired men began to make mention of it, and the evening of the third day Luther Hansen appeared at the sitting-room door.

"Lizzie, what's this I hear about Hunter?" he asked, looking searchingly into her face.

Elizabeth told him all that she knew, except the unjust thing he had said about Luther.

"I don't know anything about his plans," she concluded, "except that he said he meant to go to his mother after he had marketed the cattle. You'll hear from the neighbours that Hugh's money has set me up and made a fool of me, and various other things," she added; and she saw in his face that it had already been said.

The girl sat and looked into the night through the open door for a moment and then went on:

"I shall go to Colebyville to-morrow, and see Doctor Morgan and look after business matters. I'll tell you what we decide upon when I get home.

There'll have to be a real division of the property now. I don't know what to do about living here alone. I suppose there'll be every kind of gossip?"

The last part of the sentence was a question, and one Luther was not the man to evade.

"You'll have a lot of talk that hain't got no truth in it to meet," he said reluctantly. "You'll have t' have some one with you here. You couldn't git Hornby, could you?" Luther knew the nature of the gossip the neighbours would wreak upon her.

A light fell upon Elizabeth.

"The very idea!" she exclaimed. "Just what I need to do and at the same time just what I would love to do."

Luther was delighted that that important feature of the matter could be so easily arranged. He could not bear to have her mixed up with any sort of scandal, when her neighbours so little understood the real situation, and would be so ready to strike her wherever they could.

"Then you go an' see Hornby to-night, Lizzie. Have Jake hitch up for you, an' take Hepsie along." Luther paused a moment and then proceeded on another phase of her troubles.

"Lizzie, how do you feel about it? Do you--would you like t' have 'im back? 'Cause if you would, I'll go to Mitch.e.l.l County for you. You ain't goin' t' have no easy time of it here. Folks--specially th' women's--goin'

t' have it in for you quite a bit."

"No," Elizabeth answered promptly. "I'll take whatever comes from my neighbours. I can shut my doors and keep them outside, but, Luther, I can't go on as things have been on the inside of my own house. I don't want to talk about it at all, even to you, but I shall let him go. It's better than some other things. We'd simply come to the place where we had to understand each other. I'd a great deal rather have him back than to have him gone, but he wouldn't understand at all if I sent for him."

Luther looked at her approvingly and yet something in him held back. He longed to spare her all the low t.i.ttle-tattle of her neighbours, the coa.r.s.e jests of the hired men among themselves, and the eternal suspicions of the women.

"I know all you would say, Luther," she said, understanding his reluctance to give up. "I know what these women who think I haven't wanted to visit them will say, and I don't blame them, but I will not send for him now or ever. I have wronged him in ways he has known nothing of--maybe the scandal I haven't deserved at his hands will square that deal a little--but that is not the present difficulty. We'll have to have an agreement about our plan of life together. If he ever comes back I shall never deceive him again, but I will never be deceived by him again, either."

"Well, you know best, Lizzie. I'll talk to Jake for you. You'd best try t'

keep him an' Hepsie. They're good friends an' you're goin' t' need friends."

Luther saw that the buggy was got ready for Elizabeth and Hepsie, and after they had gone talked to the men, telling them that Elizabeth had asked him to do so. He told them her offer was for them to stay on at the usual wage, or go now so that she could fill their places. After they had signified their willingness to remain in her employment, he took Jake aside and had a long talk with him.

Jake Ransom filled with anger when the two were alone.

"I didn't say anything when you was a talkin' t' them men," he said confidentially, "but I ain't lived in this house for close on three year now without learnin' somethin'. d.a.m.ned fool! never done nothin' she's wanted 'im to since I've been here. She got 'er eye-teeth cut when Mis Hornby died, but it most killed 'er. I've watched 'er a gittin' hold of 'erself gradual-like, an' I knew there'd be an end of his bossin' some day. Gosh! I'm glad she got th' money! Noland was some fond of her."

Jake stole a sidelong glance at Luther as he said it and waited to see if he would elicit an answer. When Luther did not reply, he added:

"I'm dog'on glad I've been here. Lots of folks 'll ask me questions, an'

won't I be innocent? You kin help at your end of this thing too. I guess we kin do it 'tween us."

The understanding was perfect, but Jake took warning by Luther's refusal to discuss private affairs. Without saying just what was intended, each knew what course of action the other meant to take, and so Elizabeth was granted friends at the critical moment of her life and spared much that was hard in a community where personalities were the only topics of conversation.

Nathan Hornby was only too glad to live in the house with Jack Hunter. As he remarked, it would take no more time to drive over to his work than to cook his own breakfast in the morning.

Hepsie was at this time Elizabeth's princ.i.p.al defender. While listening to the reading of the will on the day of the funeral, Hepsie, old in the ways of her little world, had known that some explanation would have to be made of so unusual a matter as a man leaving his money to another man's wife, instead of to the man himself, and had begun by giving out the report which she intended the world to accept, by talking to Sadie Hansen before she got out of the dooryard. Hepsie knew that first reports went farthest with country folk, and Luther, who understood better than any one else why the money had been left to Elizabeth, was inwardly amused at Sadie's explanations afterward.

"You know, Luther," Sadie had said on the way home that day, "Mr. Noland told Hepsie he was agoin' t' leave his share of th' land to Lizzie, 'cause Doc Morgan says She'll never be strong again after overworkin' for all them men, an' things. An' she says he felt awful bad 'cause he was a layin' there sick so long an' her a havin' t' do for 'im when she wasn't able--an' do you know, she thinks that's why he killed hisself? I always did like 'im. I think it was mighty nice for him t' leave 'er th' stuff.

My! think of a woman havin' a farm all 'er own!"

And Luther Hansen listened to Sadie telling her mother the same thing the next day, and smiled again, for Mrs. Crane could talk much, and was to talk to better purpose than she knew.

Also, when Elizabeth went to the little schoolhouse to meeting the first Sunday of her widowhood, being determined to be a part of the community in which she lived, Hepsie was on the outskirts of the little crowd after services were over, to explain in a whisper that Lizzie was "goin' t' go t' meetin' now like she'd always wanted to do, only Mr. Hunter never 'd take 'er anywhere 'cause 'e felt hisself too good."

Hepsie was to fight Elizabeth's battles on many occasions and stayed on, watchful as a hawk of Elizabeth's reputation. A sly joke among the hired men while discussing their position in the house of "the gra.s.s-widder"

drove Hepsie beside herself and made her even more ready than she had been at first to serve the interests of one who was to have no easy time among her jealous neighbours. Elizabeth knew that in that hour she could have had most of these people for her friends had it not been that she was supposed to be "stuck-up." This also was a price she was to pay for having let her husband dominate her.

When Doctor Morgan was told of Elizabeth's plan to farm the place herself he was delighted and approved of it heartily.

"You're a little brick, Mrs. Hunter," he said. "I'll back you in anything you decide to do. It was devilish mean to run off without settling affairs up. If any of these yahoos around here say anything about it they'll get a setting up from me that they won't want again. But I'm mighty glad you've got Hornby. That'll keep actual slander off of you. How much did you say you owed now?"

"Five hundred--and some expenses for Mr. Noland--besides the note you hold for the team. I've got about a hundred in the bank, but I shall need a pony to ride about the farm, and that will take about half of what I have ready.

"The pony's a good idea. There's no telling what would be made out of you wandering around the fields on foot to look after the hired men, but on horseback you'd be all right. Now don't you worry about that note of mine--I'm in no hurry," the doctor said encouragingly. Elizabeth saw the advantage of having Doctor Morgan as an enthusiastic advocate of her plans.

"What about the land, Doctor?" the girl asked next. "I want a legal division as soon as possible. Will it have to be appraised and sold?"

Doctor Morgan noted joyfully that Elizabeth Hunter had her business well in mind, and a.s.sured her that it would be only a formality to have the appraising done, as she could buy it in herself, and further a.s.sured her that he would himself confer with John after all was settled.