"Oh, you're just in your working clothes, aren't you?" she said. "So
this is the West I used to read about," she said musing. "Everything
Western--even the way you talk. Not like the people back East that I
used to know. Is every one out here like you?"

"No, not exactly, maybe," said he. "Like I said, you'd get tired of
looking at me if that's all there was to do."

She broke out into laughter, wholly hysterical, which he did not in the
least understand. He knew the tragedy of her blindness, but did not
know that he himself was tragic.

"You are odd," said she. "You've made me laugh." She both laughed and
wept.

"You see, it's this way," he went on eagerly. "It's all right in the
summer time, when you can get out of doors, and the weather is
pleasant, like it is now. But in the winter time--_that's_ when it
gets lonesome! The snow'll be eight feet deep all around here. We
have to go on snow shoes all the winter through. Now, if we was shut
in here alone together--or if you was shut in here all by yourself, and
still lonesomer, me being over in the other house mostly--the evenings
would seem awful long. They always used to, to me."

She could not answer at all. A terrible picture was coming before her.
He struggled on.

"If that Annie Squires girl came out here, she'd be a lot of help. But
how can you tell whether she'd stay all winter? That's the trouble
with women folks--you can't tell what they'll do. She wouldn't want to
stay here long unless she was settled down some way, would she? She
ain't married, like you, ma'am. She might get restless, like enough,
wouldn't she?"

"I don't know," said Mary Gage, suddenly turning away. She felt a vast
cloud settling down upon her. Ten days? She had been married ten
days! What would ten years mean?

"I wish I didn't have to think at all," said she, her lips trembling.

"So do I, ma'am," said Sim Gage to his lawful wedded wife with engaging
candor. "I sure do wish that."

CHAPTER XXIV

ANNIE MOVES IN

The hum of a motor at the gate brought Mary Gage to the window once
more, the third morning after Doctor Barnes' visit. It was Doctor
Barnes now, she knew. She could not see that he now helped out of the
car a passenger who looked about her curiously, more especially at the
figure of Sim Gage who, hands in pockets, stood gazing at them as they
drove into the yard.

"Listen," said Doctor Barnes under his breath to the young woman,