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“Why didn’t you come?” he asked imperatively. “Why didn’t you let me in?”

The old wave of irresponsible joy rose in her at his presence; yet it was now not so much a part of her real self as a delight in some influence which might prove foreign to her. She answered him, as she was always impelled to do, dramatically, as if he gave her the cue, calling for words which might be her sincere expression, and might not.

“If you wanted it enough, you could get in,” she said perversely, with an alluring coquetry in her mien. “The door was unfastened.”

“I did want to enough,” he responded. A new light came into his eyes. He held out his hands toward her. “Get up off that cricket!” he commanded. “Come here!”

Amelia rose with a swift, feminine motion, but she stepped backward, one hand upon her heart. She thought its beating could be heard.

“It ain’t Saturday,” she whispered.

“No, it ain’t But I couldn’t wait. You knew I couldn’t. You knew I’d come to-night.”

The added years had had their effect on him; possibly, too, there had been growing up in him the strength of a long patience. He was not an heroic type of man; but noting the sudden wrinkles in his face and the firmness of his mouth, Amelia conceived a swift respect for him which she had never felt in the days of their youth.

“Am I goin’ to stay,” he asked sternly, “or shall I go home?”

As if in dramatic accord with his words, the bells jangled loudly at the gate. Should he go or stay?

“I suppose,” said Amelia faintly, “you’re, goin’ to stay.”

Laurie laid down his cap, and pulled off his coat. He looked about impatiently, and then, moving toward the nail by the door, he lifted the coat to place it over that other one hanging there. Amelia had watched him absently, thinking only, with a hungry anticipation, how much she had needed him; but as the garment touched her husband’s, the real woman burst through the husk of her outer self, and came to life with an intensity that was pain. She sprang forward.

“No! no!” she cried, the words ringing wildly in her own ears. “No! no! don’t you hang it there! Don’t you! don’t you!” She swept him aside, and laid her hands upon the old patched garment on the nail. It was as if they blessed it, and as if they defended it also. Her eyes burned with the horror of witnessing some irrevocable deed.

Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. “No, of course not,” said he. “I’ll put it on a chair. Why, what’s the matter, Milly? I guess you’re nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and let’s talk.”

The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion.

“There,” said he, “I’ll take this, and we’ll talk.”

Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm.

“Don’t you sit there!” said she. “Don’t you!”

“Why, Amelia!” he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. “Why, Milly!”

She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again.

“I understand it now,” she went on rapidly. “I know just what I feel and think, and I thank my God it ain’t too late. Don’t you see I can’t bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don’t you see ‘twould kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it’s a comfort. If ’twas you–I don’t know but I might do you a mischief!” Her voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate emotion.