appalling moments
in the woods beat themselves out noisily, seemed to favor closing the
door behind him. It was she who had brought him to this pass. It was she
who had locked his door upon herself and, in her wantonness, as good as
thrown away the key. Let her stay outside. But he was not equal to even
that sharpness of decision and Tira, after she found the door swinging
free, went in.

Tenney had seated himself in his arm-chair by the window. He had not
taken off his hat, and he sat there, hands clasped upon the stick Raven
had tossed him, his head bent over them. He looked like a man far gone
in age and misery, and Tira, returning from the bedroom, the child in
her arms, felt a mounting of compassion and was no longer afraid. She
laid the child in its cradle and, with a cheerful clatter, put wood in
the stove. The child cried fretfully and, still stepping about the room,
she began to sing, as if to distract it, though she knew she was making
the sounds of life about Tenney to draw him forth from the dark cavern
where his spirit had taken refuge. But he did not look up, and presently
she spoke to him:

"Ain't you goin' to unharness? I'm 'most afraid Charlie'll be cold."

The form of her speech was a deliberate challenge, a fashion of rousing
him to an old contention. For it was one of her loving habits with
animals to name them, and Tenney, finding that "all foolishness," would
never accept the pretty intimacies. To him, the two horses were the bay
and the colt, and now Tira, with an anxious intent of stirring him even
to contradiction, longed to hear him repeat, "Charlie?" adding, "D'you
mean the bay?" But he neither spoke nor moved, and she suddenly realized
that if she screamed at him he would not hear. She went on stepping
about the room, and presently, when the dusk had fallen so that she
could see the horse in the yard only as an indeterminate bulk, she
slipped out, unharnessed him, and led him into his stall. She began to
fodder the cattle, pausing now and then to listen for Tenney's step. But
he did not come. She returned to the house for her pails, lighted a
lantern, and went back to milk. Still he did not come, and when she
carried in her milk, there he sat in the dark kitchen, his head bent
upon his hands. Tira shut up the barn, came back to the kitchen, and put
out her lantern; then she was suddenly spent, and sat down a moment by
the stove, her hands in her lap. And so they sat together, the man and
w