Ollie stared at him, her face as white as her bridal dress, her eyes big, like a barn-yard animal"s eyes in a lantern"s light. She was gathering and wadding the ends of her veil in her hands; her lips were open, showing the points of her small, white teeth.
"Isom--he"ll kill me!" she whispered.
"Isom don"t know about it," said Joe.
"You"ll tell him!"
"No."
Relief flickered in her face. She leaned forward a little, eagerly, as if to speak, but said nothing. Joe shrank back from her, his hand pressing heavily upon the table.
"I never meant to tell him," said he slowly.
She sprang toward him, her hands clasped appealingly.
"Then you"ll let me go, you"ll let me go?" she cried eagerly. "I can"t stay here," she hurried on, "you know I can"t stay here, Joe, and suffer like he"s made me suffer the past year! You say Morgan won"t come----"
"The coward, to try to steal a man"s wife, and deceive you that way, too!" said Joe, his anger rising.
"Oh, you don"t know him as well as I do!" she defended, shaking her head solemnly. "He"s so grand, and good, and I love him, Joe--oh, Joe, I love him!"
"It"s wrong for you to say that!" Joe harshly reproved her. "I don"t want to hear you say that; you"re Isom"s wife."
"Yes, G.o.d help me," said she.
"You could be worse off than you are, Ollie; as it is you"ve got a _name_!"
"What"s a name when you despise it?" said she bitterly.
"Have you thought what people would say about you if you went away with Morgan, Ollie?" inquired Joe gently.
"I don"t care. We intend to go to some place where we"re not known, and----"
"Hide," said Joe. "Hide like thieves. And that"s what you"d be, both of you, don"t you see? You"d never be comfortable and happy, Ollie, skulking around that way."
"Yes, I would be happy," she maintained sharply. "Mr. Morgan is a gentleman, and he"s good. He"d be proud of me, he"d take care of me like a lady."
"For a little while maybe, till he found somebody else that he thought more of," said Joe. "When it comes so easy to take one man"s wife, he wouldn"t stop at going off with another."
"It"s a lie--you know it"s a lie! Curtis Morgan"s a gentleman, I tell you, and I"ll not hear you run him down!"
"Gentlemen and ladies don"t have to hide," said Joe.
"You"re lying to me!" she charged him suddenly, her face coloring angrily. "He wouldn"t go away from here on the say-so of a kid like you.
He"s down there waiting for me, and I"m going to him."
"I wouldn"t deceive you, Ollie," said he, leaving his post near the door, opening a way for her to pa.s.s. "If you think he"s there, go and see. But I tell you he"s gone. He asked me to shut my eyes to this thing and let you and him carry it out; but I couldn"t do that, so he went away."
She knew he was not deceiving her, and she turned on him with reproaches.
"You want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that old miserly Isom!" she stormed. "You"re just as bad as he is; you ain"t got a soft spot in your heart."
"Yes, I"d rather see you stay here with Isom and do a n.i.g.g.e.r woman"s work, like you have been doing ever since you married him, than let you go away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you"d have to face with him would kill you quicker than work, and you"d suffer a thousand times more sorrow."
"What do you know about it?" she sneered. "You never loved anybody.
That"s the way with you religious fools--you don"t get any fun out of life yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else"s. Well, you"ll not spoil mine, I tell you. I"ll go to Morgan this very night, and you can"t stop me!"
"Well, we"ll see about that, Ollie," he told her, showing a little temper. "I told him that I"d keep you here if I had to tie you, and I"ll do that, too, if I have to. Isom----"
"Isom, Isom!" she mocked. "Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell the old fool what you saw--tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, and tell him more! Tell the old devil I hate him, and always did hate him; tell him I"ve got out of bed in the middle of the night more than once to get the ax and kill him in his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead and in h.e.l.l, where he belongs, and I"m sorry I didn"t send him there! What do I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneaking spy!"
"I"ll go with you to the road if you want to see if he"s there," Joe offered.
Ollie"s fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood had divested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke to her now as he would have reasoned with a child.
"No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or something like that, and he went away," said she. "You couldn"t scare him, he wouldn"t run from you. Tomorrow he"ll send me word, and I"ll go to him in spite of you and Isom and everything else. I don"t care--I don"t care--you"re mean to me, too! you"re as mean as you can be!"
She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her arm to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend of her elbow. Her shoulders heaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury which she seemed to think she bore.
Joe put his hand on her shoulder.
"Don"t take on that way about it, Ollie," said he.
"Oh, oh!" she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now; "why couldn"t you have been kind to me; why couldn"t you have said a good word to me sometimes? I didn"t have a friend in the world, and I was so lonesome and tired and--and--and--everything!"
Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How could he tell her that he had not understood her striving and yearning to reach him, and that at last understanding, he had been appalled by the enormity of his own heart"s desire. He said nothing for a little while, but took her by one tear-wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the table he stopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with comforting touch.
"Never mind, Ollie," said he at last; "you go to bed now and don"t think any more about going away with Morgan. If I thought it was best for your peace and happiness for you to go, I"d step out of the way at once. But he"d drag you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for they don"t have that kind of women here. Morgan isn"t as good a man as Isom is, with all his hard ways and stinginess. If he"s honest and honorable, he can wait for you till Isom dies. He"ll not last more than ten or fifteen years longer, and you"ll be young even then, Ollie. I don"t suppose anybody ever gets too old to be happy any more than they get too old to be sad."
"No, I don"t suppose they do, Joe," she sighed.
She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder after a storm.
"I"ll put out the light, Ollie," said he. "You go on to bed."
"Oh, Joe, Joe!" said she in a little pleading, meaningless way; a little way of reproach and softness.
She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her subsiding pa.s.sion in them, and looked yearningly into his. Ollie suddenly found herself feeling small and young, penitent and frail, in the presence of this quickly developed man. His strength seemed to rise above her, and spread round her, and warm her in its protecting folds. There was comfort in him, and promise.
The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down from the first mother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the s.e.x as the instinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was primitive in her pa.s.sions and pains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose and trembling.
"If you"d be good to me, Joe; if you"d only be good and kind, I could stay," she said.
Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding plea. He put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way. She was very near him then, and her small hand, so lately cold and tear-damp, was warm within his.
She threw her head back in expectant att.i.tude; her yearning eyes seemed to be dragging him to her lips.
"I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I know how to be," he promised.