wife, although
she had not known it. The man was not dead, but she spoke the entire
miserable truth when she replied as she did. David assumed that he was
dead. He felt a throb of relief, of which he was ashamed, but he
could not down it. He did not know what it was that was so alive and
triumphant within him: love, or pity, or the natural instinct of the
decent male to shelter and protect. Whatever it was, it was dominant.

"Do you have to work hard?" he asked.

"Pretty hard, I guess. I expect to."

"And you don't get any pay?"

"That's all right; I don't expect to get any," said she, and there was
bitterness in her voice.

In spite of her stoutness she was not as strong as the man. She was not
at all strong, and, moreover, the constant presence of a sense of injury
at the hands of life filled her very soul with a subtle poison, to her
weakening vitality. She was a child hurt and worried and bewildered,
although she was to the average eye a stout, able-bodied, middle-aged
woman; but David had not the average eye, and he saw her as she really
was, not as she seemed. There had always been about her a little
weakness and dependency which had appealed to him. Now they seemed
fairly to cry out to him like the despairing voices of the children whom
he had never had, and he knew he loved her as he had never loved her
before, with a love which had budded and flowered and fruited and
survived absence and starvation. He spoke abruptly.

"I've about got my business done in these parts," said he. "I've got
quite a little money, and I've got a little house, not much, but mighty
snug, back where I come from. There's a garden. It's in the woods. Not
much passing nor going on."

The woman was looking at him with incredulous, pitiful eyes like a
dog's. "I hate much goin' on," she whispered.

"Suppose," said David, "you take those berries home and pack up your
things. Got much?"

"All I've got will go in my bag."

"Well, pack up; tell the madam where you live that you're sorry, but
you're worn out--"

"God knows I am," cried the woman, with sudden force, "worn out!"

"Well, you tell her that, and say you've got another chance, and--"

"What do you mean?" cried the woman, and she hung upon his words like a
drowning thing.

"Mean? Why, what I mean is this. You pack your bag and come to the
parson's back there, that white house."

"I know--"

"In the mean time I'll see about getting a license, and--"

Suddenly the w