He turned up his palms with a little gesture of defeat. "I can't."

"You can't stay here. It's killing you. It's poisoning you. Did you
ever hear of toxins? That means poisons, and you're poisoning
yourself. You'll die of it. You've got another twenty years of work
in you. What's ailing you? You go back to your wheat and your apples
and your hogs. There isn't a bigger job in the world than that."

For a moment his face took on a glow from the warmth of her own
inspiring personality. But it died again. When they rose to go, his
shoulders drooped again, his muscles sagged. At the doorway he paused
a moment, awkward in farewell. He blushed a little, stammered.

"Emma--I always wanted to tell you. God knows it was luck for you the
way it turned out--but I always wanted to----"

She took his hand again in her firm grip at that, and her kindly,
bright brown eyes were on him. "I never held it against you, Ben. I
had to live a long time to understand it. But I never held a grudge.
It just wasn't to be, I suppose. But listen to me, Ben. You do as I
tell you. You go back to your wheat and your apples and your hogs.
There isn't a bigger man-size job in the world. It's where you belong."

Unconsciously his shoulders straightened again. Again they sagged.
And so they parted, the two.

He must have walked almost all the long way home, through miles and
miles of city streets. He must have lost his way, too, for when he
looked up at a corner street sign it was an unfamiliar one.

So he floundered about, asked his way, was misdirected. He took the
right streetcar at last and got off at his own corner at seven o'clock,
or later. He was in for a scolding, he knew.

But when he came to his own doorway he knew that even his tardiness
could not justify the bedlam of sound that came from within.
High-pitched voices. Bella's above all the rest, of course, but there
was Minnie's too, and Gus's growl, and Pearlie's treble, and the boy
Ed's and----

At the other voice his hand trembled so that the knob rattled in the
door, and he could not turn it. But finally he did turn it, and
stumbled in, breathing hard. And that other voice was Dike's.

He must have just arrived. The flurry of explanation was still in
progress. Dike's knapsack was still on his back, and his canteen at his
hip, his helmet slung over his shoulder. A brown, hard, glowing Dike,
strangely tall and handsome and older, too. Older.

All t