thing of her.
I know he's jest comin' home to rest a minute, so he can start
again. I know he 'ain't eat a thing since last night. Well, Maria
has got some coffee all made, and a nice little piece of steak ready
to cook."

"You holler and ask him."

"What is the use? Just see the way he walks; I know without askin'."

However, as Andrew neared his house he involuntarily quickened his
pace, and his head and shoulders became suddenly alert. It had
occurred to him that possibly Fanny and Eva might have had some news
of Ellen during his absence. Possibly she might have come home even.

Then he was hailed by the stout woman standing at the door of the
next house. "Heard anything yet, Andrew?"

Andrew shook his head, and looked with despairing eyes at the
windows where he used to see Ellen's little face. She had not come,
then, for these women would have known it. He entered the house, and
Fanny greeted him with a tremulous cry. "Have you heard anything;
oh, have you heard anything, Andrew?"

Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm.

"Have you?"

[Illustration: Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm]

Andrew shook his head, and moved her hand from his arm, and pushed
past her roughly.

Fanny stood in his way, and threw her arms around him with a wild,
sobbing cry, but he pushed her away also with sternness, and went to
the kitchen sink to wash his hands. The four women--his wife, her
sister, and the two neighbors--stood staring at him; his face was
terrible as he dipped the water from the pail on the sink corner,
and the terribleness of it was accentuated by the homely and
every-day nature of his action.

They all stared, then Fanny burst out with a loud and desperate
wail. "He won't speak to me, he pushes me away, when it is our child
that's lost--his as well as mine. He hasn't any feelings for me that
bore her. He only thinks of himself. Oh, oh, my own husband pushes
me away."

Andrew went on washing his hands and his ghastly face, and made no
reply. He had actually at that moment not the slightest sympathy
with his wife. All his other outlets of affection were choked by his
concern for his lost child; and as for pity, he kept reflecting,
with a cold cruelty, that it served her right--it served both her
and her sister right. Had not they driven the child away between
them?

He would not eat the supper which the neighbors had prepared for
him; finally he went across the yard to his mother's.