without a minute's notice and on the eve
of--"

"Well, you needn't be sorry for me--you needn't waste pity on me," Dixie
broke in with irrelevant warmth. "You'll find me doing business at the
same old stand, man or no man. If we can just keep this silly caper from
getting out I'll be thankful. So far, I've got along by myself, and,
outside of wanting to flaunt a husband in Carrie Wade's face, I don't
know as I'll be particularly disappointed. I can keep on at the plough
and hoe, rain or shine, and--" Her voice had trailed away into
indistinctness, and he saw her lower lip quivering. She suddenly turned
and hurried away.

He saw her vanish in the lighted doorway, and he stood overwhelmed with
blended perplexity and sympathy.

"She's trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but she's hit, and hit
hard--harder'n I thought possible in her case," he mused. "She never saw
the feller, but she may have had a sort of a idea in her head of what he
was like, an' the loss is as keen as if she had knowed him a long time,
maybe keener, for the gloss hain't been rubbed off by actual
acquaintance, as it has been off of me and most other married folks. I
reckon my wife has put the gloss back on Dick Wrinkle, if it was ever
off, and I've got a rival in the spirit-world that nothing earthly
could ever hope to match. They say absence works that way, and when I
get to Texas maybe she will look back on all I've done to keep peace and
harmony betwixt us and appreciate me more than she is doing now. I say
maybe, for, on t'other hand, she may be glad to have me away, and when I
get back I may find that her whole heart is in the empty grave she is
bent on digging and adorning at such a great outlay."

CHAPTER VIII

The next afternoon, as Henley was on his way home from the store, and
was passing a corn-field owned by Sam Pitman--a farmer of weak character
and sullen disposition who had been a moonshiner as long as the law had
permitted the business to yield profits--he was surprised to see Dixie
near the centre of the field. She was bending over something or
somebody, and, fearing that an accident had happened, he hastily climbed
the fence and walked rapidly over the ploughed soil toward her. He could
not make out what the object of her attention was till he was quite
near, and then he saw that it was a little boy about ten years of age
who was seated on the ground and, till now, hidden by the corn-stalks
and their succulent blades, which