er
husband discovered her most secret thoughts?

She was tortured at the thought of him! He must have grieved and
brooded. He had wept over his years. He had raged over the young
man's strength and spirits. He had trembled at the whisperings, at
the smiles, at the hand pressures. In burning madness, in glowing
jealousy, he had made it into a whole elopement history, of which
there was as yet nothing.

She thought how old he must have been that night when he went. His
back was bent, his hands shook. The agony of many long nights had
made him so. He had gone to escape that existence of passionate
doubting.

She remembered other lines in the letter: "It is not my intention
to destroy your character. I have always been too old for you." And
then another: "You shall always be respected and honored. Only be
silent, and all the shame will fall on me!"

The wife felt deeper and deeper remorse. Was it possible that
people would be deceived? Would it do to lie so too before God? Why
did she sit in the cottage, pitied like a mourning mother, honored
like a bride on her wedding day? Why was it not she who was
homeless, friendless, despised? How can such things be? How can God
let himself be so deceived?

Over the great dresser hung a little bookcase. On the top shelf
stood a big book with brass clasps. Behind those clasps was hidden
the story of a man and a woman who lied before God and men. "Who
has suggested to you, woman, to do such things? Look, young men
stand outside to lead you away."

The woman stared at the book, listened for the young men's
footsteps. She trembled at every knock, shuddered at every step.
She was ready to stand up and confess, ready to fall down and die.

The coffee was ready. The women glided sedately forward to the
table. They filled their cups, took a lump of sugar in their mouths
and began to sip their boiling coffee, silently and decently, the
wives of mechanics first, the scrub-women last. But the wife did
not see what was going on. Remorse made her quite beside herself.
She had a vision. She sat at night out in a freshly ploughed field.
Round about her sat great birds with mighty wings and pointed
beaks. They were gray, scarcely perceptible against the gray
ground, but they held watch over her. They were passing sentence
upon her. Suddenly they flew up and sank down over her head. She
saw their sharp claws, their pointed beaks, their beating wings
coming nearer and nearer. It was like a d