est
all wrought up. I guess there's going to be a thunder-tempest. I've
felt jest like it all day. I wish you'd go out in the garden and pick
a mess of green corn for supper. If you're a mind to you can husk it,
and get that middling-sized kettle out from under the sink and put
the water on to boil. I suppose they'll be home before long now. They
ain't quite got to going without their victuals."

Henry rose. "I'd admire to get the corn," said he, and went around
the house towards the kitchen. Left to herself, Sylvia let her work
fall in her lap. She stared at the front yard and the street beyond
and the opposite house, dimly seen between waving boughs, and her
face was the face of despair. Little, commonplace, elderly
countenance that it seemed, it was strengthened into tragedy by the
terrible stress of some concealed misery of the spirit. Sylvia sat
very stiffly, so stiffly that even the work in her lap, a mass of
soft muslin, might have been marble, with its immovable folds. Sylvia
herself looked petrified; not a muscle of her face stirred. She was
suffering the keenest agony upon earth, that agony of the spirit
which strikes it dumb.

She had borne it for months. She had never let slip the slightest
hint of it. At times she had managed to quiet it with what she knew
to be sophistries. She had been able to imagine herself almost happy
with Rose and the new passion for her which had come into her life,
but that passion was overgrown by her secret, like some hideous
parasite. Even the girl's face, which was so beloved, was not to be
seen without a pang to follow upon the happiness. Sylvia showed,
however, in spite of her face of utter despair, an odd strength, a
courage as if for battle.

After awhile she heard Henry's returning footsteps, and immediately
her face and whole body relaxed. She became flesh, and took up her
needlework, and Henry found her sewing placidly. The change had been
marvellous. Once more Sylvia was a little, commonplace, elderly woman
at her commonplace task. Even that subtle expression which at times
so puzzled Henry had disappeared. The man had a sensation of relief
as he resumed his seat on the stone step. He was very patient with
Sylvia. It was his nature to be patient with all women. Without
realizing it, he had a tenderness for them which verged on contempt.
He loved Sylvia, but he never lost sight of the fact that she was a
woman and he a man, and therefore it followed, as a matter of c