“I didn’t leave the country,” replied David Joslin. “I left you. That don’t mean that I’ve left any of my responsibilities. I told you I didn’t dare look at the things I ought to do—it was only a question of the thing I ought to do the most. I had to get my education first. Now I’ve come back. I want to see now what I’d best to do about you.”
“Fine time to begin plannin’ now!” rejoined his wife sullenly.
“It’s true,” said he, “I can’t do much. I’ve got mighty little to do with. Still, I want to pay my debts.”
She rose and stood before him, close to his chair, her hands clenched into fists, her eyes flashing.
“Dang ye!” said she, with all the fury of the woman scorned in her face. “Ye quit me yellow, that’s what ye did. Ye run away an’ left me—ye was a coward—ye was a-skeered to stay in here—an’ now ye want to come sneakin’ around, tryin’ to make peace with them Gannts that we fit with all our lives, the hull of our fam’ly agin the hull of theirn! Ye come a-crawlin’ in here atter dark, an’ talkin’ to me about plans! Ye say the Lord has been a-holpin’ ye. I don’t reckon the Lord had much to do with it. I reckon ye could tell a-plenty different story right now if ye wanted to.”
“Yes,” said David Joslin, his forehead wet now, “I could.”
“Ye act to me like a houn’,” said she. “If ye’d been ary part of a man ye wouldn’t of runned away an’ lef me.”
“David, I reckon ye got to call that kind of talk,” said the old woman quietly.
“Yes, Granny,” said he, “I reckon I must.” But yet he sat silent, while his wife, now lashed into a fury, reviled him in such words as need not be repeated. Granny Joslin sat and chuckled ghoulishly, her pipe between her toothless lips.
“Well, go on, Meliss’,” said she. “Ye’re a-gettin’ ready for a trouncin’, ‘pears to me. Hain’t no Joslin’ll take that.”
But presently her grim face turned to the man who sat there silent, staring into the ashes of the fire.
“What’s the matter with ye, boy?” said she. “_Air_ ye quittin’? Tell me—have ye been actin’ up with ary other womern Outside? If ye hain’t, it’s time ye tuk an’ taken a hand now in yore own house.”
“Granny,” said David Joslin suddenly, his face white in his resolution for a “true confession and not a false defense,” “there are three women in my life. Meliss’ here is one. There were two others—Outside. If you’d mean that I’ve gone wrong—for always—with either, or any other woman in the world, that’s not true. I came here to tell you the truth. What I’ve done you know—as much as you’re big enough to know or understand, Meliss’. Now, what do you mean? You say you’ve fixed me—what do you mean?”