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“Did you ever wonder whether you had done right? Did you ever think it would have been better for him to keep his promises to you? For him to be unhappy?”

A shade of trouble crossed her face.

“I guess I did!” she owned. “At fust, I was so anxious to git out o’ his way, I never thought of anything else; but when I got settled down here, an’ had all my time for spec’latin’ on things, I was a good deal put to ‘t whether I’d done the best anybody could. But I didn’t reason much, in them days; I jest felt. All was, I couldn’t bear to have James tied to me when he’d got so’s to hate me. Well, then he married–“

“Was she a good woman?”

“Good enough, yes; a leetle mite coarse-grained, but well-meanin’ all through. Well, now, you know the neighbors blamed me for lettin’ her have my things. Why, bless you, I didn’t need ’em! An’ Jim had used ’em so many years, he’d ha’ missed ’em if they’d been took away. Then he never was forehanded, an’ how could he ha’ furnished a house all over ag’in, I’d like to know? The neighbors never understood. The amount of it was, they never was put in jest such a place, any of ’em.”

“O Nancy, Nancy!” I said, “you cared for just one thing, and it was gone. You didn’t care for the tables and chairs that were left behind!”

Two tears came, and dimmed her bright blue eyes. Her firm, delicate mouth quivered.

“Yes,” she said, “you see how ’twas. I knew you would. Well, arter he was married, there was a spell when ’twas pretty tough. Sometimes I couldn’t hardly help goin’ over there by night an’ peekin’ into the winder, an’ seein’ how they got along. I went jest twice. The fust time was late in the fall, an’ she was preservin’ pears by lamplight. I looked into the kitchin winder jest as she was bendin’ over the stove, tryin’ the syrup, an’ he was holdin’ the light for her to see. I dunno what she said, but ’twas suthin’ that made ’em both laugh out, an’ then they turned an’ looked at one another, proper pleased. I dunno why, but it took right hold o’ me, an’ I started runnin’ an’ I never stopped till I got in, here an’ onto my own bed. I thought ‘twould ha’ been massiful if death had took me that night, but I’m glad it didn’t, dear, I’m glad it didn’t! I shouldn’t ha’ seen ye, if it had, an’ there’s a good many things I shouldn’t ha’ had time to study out. You jest put a mite o’ cayenne pepper in that cup, an’ turn some hot water on it. It kind o’ warms me up.”

After a moment’s rest, she began again.

“The next time I peeked was the last, for that night they’d had some words, an’ they both set up straight as a mack’rel, an’ wouldn’t speak to one another. That hurt me most of anything. I never’ve got over the feelin’ that I was James’s mother, an’ that night I felt sort o’ bruised all through, as if some stranger’d been hurtin’ him. So I never went spyin’ on ’em no more. I felt as if I couldn’t stan’ it. But when I went to help her with the work, that time he was sick, I guess the neighbors thought I hadn’t any sense of how a right-feelin’ woman ought to act. I guess they thought I was sort o’ coarse an’ low, an’ didn’t realize what I’d, been through. Dear, don’t you never believe it. The feelin’ that’s between husband an’ wife’s like a live creatur’, an’ when he told me that night that he didn’t prize me no more, he wounded it; an’ when he married the other woman, he killed it dead. If he’d ha’ come back to me then, an’ swore he was the same man I married, I could ha’ died for him, jest as I would this minute, but he never should ha’ touched me. But suthin’ had riz up in the place o’ the feelin’ I had fust, so’t I never could ha’ helped doin’ for him, any more’n if he’d been my own child.”