. The lantern burned steadily, the horses slept with an
audible breathing. Finally the jug was empty; he endeavored to drink twice
after that was a fact before discovering it.

He rose stiffly and threw open the door. Dawn was flushing behind the
eastern range; the tops of the mountains were thinly visible on the
brightening sky. His dwelling, with every window closed, was silvery with
dew. He walked slowly, but without faltering, to the porch, and mounted
the steps from the sod; the ascent seemed surprisingly steep, long. The
door to the dining room was unlocked and he entered; in the thinning gloom
he could distinguish the table set as usual, the coffee pot at Lettice's
place glimmering faintly. He turned to the left and passed into their
bedroom. The details of the chamber were growing clear: the bed was placed
against the farther wall, projecting into the room, its low footboard held
between posts that rose slimly dark against the white counterpane beyond;
on the right were a window and high chest of drawers, on the left a stand
with a china toilet service and a couch covered with sheep skins, roughly
tanned and untrimmed. A chair by the bed bore Lettice's clothes, another
at the foot awaited his own. By his side a curtain hung out from the wall,
forming a wardrobe.

He vaguely made out the form of Lettice sitting upright in the bed, her
hands clasped about her knees.

"Your brother-in-law," he observed, "is a powerful spindling man." She
made no rejoinder to this, and, after a short pause, he further remarked,
"How he gets on sociable I don't see."

His wife's eyes were opened wide, gazing intently into the greying room;
not by a sound, a motion, did she show any consciousness of his presence.
He was deliberate in his movements, very deliberate, laboriously exact in
his mental processes, but they were ordered, logical. It began to annoy
him that his wife had made no reply to his pleasantries; it was out of
reason; he wasn't drunk like Rutherford Berry.

"I said," he pronounced, "that Berry is a nubbin. Didn't you hear me?
haven't you got an answer to you?"

She sat gazing into nothingness, ignoring him completely.

His resentment changed to anger; he moved to the foot of the bed, where,
in his shirt sleeves, he harangued her:

"I want a cheerful wife, one with a song to her, and not a dam' female
elder around the house. A good woman is a--a jewel, but when your goodness
gives you a face ache it's ... it's s