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“How long are you calculating to stay?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve been thinking,” said William, “I’d have some new gilt paper on the
sitting-room at my house, and a new stove in the kitchen. I thought –”

“I know what you thought,” interrupted Narcissa, still trembling and glowing with nervous fervor.”and you’re real good, William. It ain’t many men would have waited for me as you’ve done, when father wouldn’t let me get married as long as he lived. I know by good right I hadn’t ought to keep you waiting, but I’m going to, and it ain’t because I don’t think enough of you – it ain’t that; I can’t help it. If you give up having me at all, if you think you’d rather marry somebody else, I can’t help it; I won’t blame you –”

“Maybe you want me to, Narcissa,” said William, with a sad dignity.”If you do, if you want to get rid of me, if that’s it –”

Narcissa started.”That ain’t it,” said she. She hesitated, and added, with formal embarrassment – she had the usual reticence of a New England village woman about expressions of affection, and had never even told her lover in actual words that she loved him – “My feeling towards you are the same as they have always been, William.”

It was almost dark in the parlor. They could see only each other’s faces gleaming as with pale light.”It would be a blow to me if I thought they wa’n’t, Narcissa,” William returned, simply.

“They are.”

William put his arm around her waist, and they stood close together for a moment. He stroked back her tumbled red hair with clumsy tenderness.”You have had a hard time, Narcissa,” he whispered, brokenly.”If you want to go, I ain’t going to say anything against it. I ain’t going to deny I’m kind of disappointed. I’ve been living alone so long, and I feel kind of sore sometimes with waitin’, but –”

“I shouldn’t make you any kind of a wife if I married you now, without waiting,” Narcissa said, in a voice at once stern and tender. She stood apart from him, and put up her hand with a sort of involuntary maiden primness to smooth her hair where his had stroked it awry.”If,” she went on, “I had to settle down in your house, as I have done in father’s, and see the years stretching ahead like a long road without any turn, and nothing but the same old dog-trot of washing and ironing and scrubbing and cooking and sewing and washing dishes till I drop into my grave, I should hate you William Crane.”

“I could fetch an’ carry all the water for the washin’, Narcissa, and I could wash the dishes,” said William, with humble beseeching.

“It ain’t that. I know you’d do all you could. It’s – Oh, William!I’ve got to have a break; I’ve got to have one good time. I – like you, and – I liked father; but love ain’t enough sometimes when it ties anybody. Everybody has got their own feet and their own wanting to use ’em, and sometimes when love comes in the way of that, it ain’t anything but a dead wall. Once we had a black heifer that would jump all the walls; we had to sell her. She always made me think of myself. I tell you, William, I’ve got to jump my wall, and I’ve got to have one good time.”

William Crane nodded his gray head in patient acquiescence. His forehead was knitted helplessly; he could not in the least understand what his sweetheart meant; in her present mood she was in altogether a foreign language for him, but still the unintelligible sound of her was sweet as a song to his ears. This poor village lover had at least gained the crown of absolute faith through his weary years of waiting; the woman he loved was still a star, and her rays not yet resolved into human reachings and graspings.