very
well.

"Is you gwine ter chu'ch ter-night?" inquired his wife.

"I reckon I 'll stay home an' go ter bed," he replied. "I ain't be'n
feelin' well dis evenin', an' I 'spec' I better git a good night's
res'."

"Well, you kin stay ef you mineter. Good preachin' 'u'd make you feel
better, but ef you ain't gwine, don' fergit ter tote in some wood an'
lighterd 'fo' you go ter bed. De moon is shinin' bright, an' you can't
have no 'scuse 'bout not bein' able ter see."

Uncle Wellington followed her out to the gate, and watched her receding
form until it disappeared in the distance. Then he re-entered the house
with a quick step, and taking a hatchet from a corner of the room, drew
the chest from under the bed. As he applied the hatchet to the
fastenings, a thought struck him, and by the flickering light of the
pine-knot blazing on the hearth, a look of hesitation might have been
seen to take the place of the determined expression his face had worn up
to that time. He had argued himself into the belief that his present
action was lawful and justifiable. Though this conviction had not
prevented him from trembling in every limb, as though he were committing
a mere vulgar theft, it had still nerved him to the deed. Now even his
moral courage began to weaken. The lawyer had told him that his wife's
property was his own; in taking it he was therefore only exercising his
lawful right. But at the point of breaking open the chest, it occurred
to him that he was taking this money in order to get away from aunt
Milly, and that he justified his desertion of her by the lawyer's
opinion that she was not his lawful wife. If she was not his wife, then
he had no right to take the money; if she was his wife, he had no right
to desert her, and would certainly have no right to marry another woman.
His scheme was about to go to shipwreck on this rock, when another idea
occurred to him.

"De lawyer say dat in one sense er de word de ole 'oman is my wife, an'
in anudder sense er de word she ain't my wife. Ef I goes ter de Norf an'
marry a w'ite 'oman, I ain't commit no brigamy, 'caze in dat sense er de
word she ain't my wife; but ef I takes dis money, I ain't stealin' it,
'caze in dat sense er de word she is my wife. Dat 'splains all de
trouble away."

Having reached this ingenious conclusion, uncle Wellington applied the
hatchet vigorously, soon loosened the fastenings of the chest, and with
trembling hands extracted from its depths a