“Matt! What on earth do you mean?”
She put her lips close against his ear to say: “Right into the big elm. You said you could. So ‘t we’d never have to leave each other any more.”
“Why, what are you talking of? You’re crazy!”
“I’m not crazy; but I will be if I leave you.”
“Oh, Matt, Matt—” he groaned.
She tightened her fierce hold about his neck. Her face lay close to his face.
“Ethan, where’ll I go if I leave you? I don’t know how to get along alone. You said so yourself just now. Nobody but you was ever good to me. And there’ll be that strange girl in the house... and she’ll sleep in my bed, where I used to lay nights and listen to hear you come up the stairs...”
The words were like fragments torn from his heart. With them came the hated vision of the house he was going back to—of
