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“A bit too well–eh, Joey!” cried the wife.

“‘If it had not been for you we should not be alive now, to grieve and to rejoice in this life, that is so hard for us. But we have recovered some of our losses, and no longer feel the burden of poverty. The little Alfred is a great comforter to me. I hold him to my breast and think of the big, good Alfred, and I weep to think that those times of suffering were perhaps the times of a great happiness that is gone for ever.'”

“Oh, but isn’t it a shame to take a poor girl in like that!” cried Mrs. Goyte. “Never to let on that he was married, and raise her hopes–I call it beastly, I do.”

“You don’t know,” I said. “You know how anxious women are to fall in love, wife or no wife. How could he help it, if she was determined to fall in love with him?”

“He could have helped it if he’d wanted to.”

“Well,” I said. “We aren’t all heroes.”

“Oh, but that’s different!–The big, good Alfred!–did you ever hear such Tommy-rot in your life?–Go on–what does she say at the end?”

“Er–‘ We shall be pleased to hear of your life in England. We all send many kind regards to your good parents. I wish you all happiness for your future days. Your very affectionate and ever-grateful Elise.'”

There was silence for a moment, during which Mrs. Goyte remained with her head dropped, sinister and abstracted. Suddenly she lifted her face, and her eyes flashed.

“Oh, but I call it beastly, I call it mean, to take a girl in like that.”

“Nay,” I said. “Probably he hasn’t taken her in at all. Do you think those French girls are such poor innocent things? I guess she’s a great deal more downy than he.”

“Oh, he’s one of the biggest fools that ever walked,” she cried.

“There you are!” said I.

“But it’s his child right enough,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” said I.

“I’m sure of it.”

“Oh well,” I said–“if you prefer to think that way.”

“What other reason has she for writing like that—-?”

I went out into the road and looked at the cattle.

“Who is this driving the cows?” I said. She too came out.

“It’s the boy from the next farm,” she said.

“Oh well,” said I, “those Belgian girls! You never know where their letters will end.–And after all, it’s his affair–you needn’t bother.”

“Oh—-!” she cried, with rough scorn–“it’s not me that bothers. But it’s the nasty meanness of it. Me writing him such loving letters”–she put her hands before her face and laughed malevolently–“and sending him nice little cakes and bits I thought he’d fancy all the time. You bet he fed that gurrl on my things–I know he did. It’s just like him.–I’ll bet they laughed together over my letters. I’ll bet anything they did—-“

“Nay,” said I. “He’d burn your letters for fear they’d give him away.”

There was a black look on her yellow face. Suddenly a voice was heard calling. She poked her head out of the shed, and answered coolly:

“All right!” Then, turning to me: “That’s his mother looking after me.”

She laughed into my face, witch-like, and we turned down the road.

When I awoke, the morning after this episode, I found the house darkened with deep, soft snow, which had blown against the large west windows, covering them with a screen. I went outside, and saw the valley all white and ghastly below me, the trees beneath black and thin looking like wire, the rock-faces dark between the glistening shroud, and the sky above sombre, heavy, yellowish-dark, much too heavy for the world below of hollow bluey whiteness figured with black. I felt I was in a valley of the dead. And I sensed I was a prisoner, for the snow was everywhere deep, and drifted in places. So all the morning I remained indoors, looking up the drive at the shrubs so heavily plumed with snow, at the gateposts raised high with a foot or more of extra whiteness. Or I looked down into the white-and-black valley, that was utterly motionless and beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus.