shook his head. "She is not going to like it, anyway," he answered.
"I must speak to her direct. It would be like shirking."

Molly saw how true his instinct was here; and a little flame shot upward
from the glow of her love and pride in him. Oh, if they could all only
know that he was like this when you understood him! She did not dare say
out to him what her fear was about this letter of his to her mother. She
did not dare because--well, because she lacked a little faith. That is
it, I am afraid. And for that sin she was her own punishment. For in
this day, and in many days to come, the pure joy of her love was vexed
and clouded, all through a little lack of faith; while for him, perfect
in his faith, his joy was like crystal.

"Tell me what you're going to write," she said.

He smiled at her. "No."

"Aren't you going to let me see it when it's done?"

"No." Then a freakish look came into his eyes. "I'll let yu' see
anything I write to other women." And he gave her one of his long
kisses. "Let's get through with it together," he suggested, when they
were once more in his sick-room, that room which she had given to him.
"You'll sit one side o' the table, and I'll sit the other, and we'll go
ahaid; and pretty soon it will be done."

"O dear!" she said. "Yes, I suppose that is the best way."

And so, accordingly, they took their places. The inkstand stood between
them. Beside each of them she distributed paper enough, almost, for a
presidential message. And pens and pencils were in plenty. Was this not
the headquarters of the Bear Creek schoolmarm?

"Why, aren't you going to do it in pencil first?" she exclaimed, looking
up from her vacant sheet. His pen was moving slowly, but steadily.

"No, I don't reckon I need to," he answered, with his nose close to the
paper. "Oh, damnation, there's a blot!" He tore his spoiled beginning in
small bits, and threw them into the fireplace. "You've got it too full,"
he commented; and taking the inkstand, he tipped a little from it out
of the window. She sat lost among her false starts. Had she heard him
swear, she would not have minded. She rather liked it when he swore. He
possessed that quality in his profanity of not offending by it. It is
quite wonderful how much worse the same word will sound in one man's
lips than in another's. But she did not hear him. Her mind was among a
litter of broken sentences. Each thought which she began ran out into
the empty air, or came again