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"Wal, we must be goin’. Don’t you leave them dishes f’t me to wash," she screamed at Agnes as she went out the door. "An’ if we don’t get home by five, them caaves orter be fed. "

As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drive away, Will studied her, a smothering ache in his heart as he saw how thin and bent and weary she was. In his soul he felt that she was a dying woman unless she had rest and tender care.

As she turned, she saw something in his face–a pity and an agony of self-accusation–that made her weak and white. She sank into a chair, putting her hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing of breath. Then the blood came back to her face, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Don’t–don’t look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His pity hurt her.

At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewildered, like some gentle animal, Will’s throat contracted so that he could not speak. His voice came at last in one terrible cry–"Oh, Agnes! for God’s sake forgive me!" He knelt by her side and put his arm about her shoulders and kissed her bowed head. A curious numbness involved his whole body; his voice was husky, the tears burned in his eyes. His whole soul and body ached with his pity and remorseful, self-accusing wrath.

"It was all my fault. Lay it all to me… I am the one to bear it…. Oh, I’ve dreamed a thousand times of sayin’ this to you, Aggie! I thought if I could only see you again and ask your forgiveness, I’d–" He ground his teeth together in his assault upon himself. "I threw my life away an’ killed you–that’s what I did!"

He rose and raged up and down the room till he had mastered himself.

"What did you think I meant that day of the thrashing?" he said, turning suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month or two past.

She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed to be remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks.

"I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn’t know–why–"

He uttered a snarl of sell-disgust.

"You couldn’t know. Nobody could tell what I meant. But why didn’t you write? I was ready to come back. I only wanted an excuse–only a line. "

"How could I, Will–after your letter?"

He groaned and turned away.

"And Will, I–I got mad too. I couldn’t write. "

"Oh, that letter–I can see every line of it! F’r God’s sake, don’t think of it again! But I didn’t think, even when I wrote that letter, that I’d find you where you are. I didn’t think, I hoped anyhow, Ed Kinney wouldn’t–"

She stopped him with a startled look in her great eyes. "Don’t talk about him–it ain’t right. I mean it don’t do any good. What could I do, after Father died? Mother and I. Besides, I waited three years to hear from you, Will. "

He gave a strange, choking cry. It burst from his throat –that terrible thing, a man’s sob of agony. She went on, curiously calm now.

"Ed was good to me; and he offered a home, anyway, for Mother–"

"And all the time I was waiting for some line to break down my cussed pride, so I could write to you and explain. But you did go with Ed to the fair," he ended suddenly, seeking a morsel of justification for himself.

"Yes. But I waited an’ waited; and I thought you was mad at me, and so when they came I–no, I didn’t really go with Ed. There was a wagonload of them. "

"But I started," he explained, "but the wheel came off. I didn’t send word because I thought you’d feel sure I’d come. If you’d only trusted me a little more– No! it was all my fault. I acted like a crazy fool. I didn’t stop to reason about anything. "

They sat in silence alter these explanations. The sound of the snapping wings of the grasshoppers came through the windows, and a locust high in a poplar sent down his ringing whir.

"It can’t be helped now, Will," Agnes said at last, her voice full of the woman’s resignation. "We’ve got to bear it. "