At this very gate he had driven up that last forenoon; to find that she had gone with Ed. He had lived that sickening, depressing moment over many times, but not times enough to keep down the bitter passion he had felt then, and felt now as he went over it in detail.
He was so happy and confident that morning, so perfectly certain that all would be made right by a kiss and a cheery jest. And now! Here he stood sick with despair and doubt of all the world. He turned away from the desolate homestead and walked on.
"But I'll see her—just once more. And then—"
And again the mighty significance, responsibility of life, fell upon him. He felt, as young people seldom do, the irrevocableness of living, the determinate, unalterable character of living. He determined to begin to live in some new way—just how he could not say.
Old man Kinney and his wife were getting their Sunday-school lessons with much bickering, when Will drove up the next day to the dilapidated gate and hitched his team to a leaning-post under the oaks. Will saw the old man's head at the open window, but no one else, though he looked eagerly for Agnes as he walked up the familiar path. There stood the great oak under whose shade he had grown to be a man. How close the great tree seemed to stand to his heart, someway! As the wind stirred in the leaves, it was like a rustle of greeting.
In that old house they had all lived, and his mother had toiled for thirty years. A sort of prison after all. There they were all born, and there his father and his little sister had died. And then it passed into old Kinney's hands.
Walking along up the path he felt a serious weakness in his limbs, and he made a pretence of stopping to look at a flower-bed containing nothing but weeds. After seven years of separation he was about to face once more the woman whose life came so near being a part of his—Agnes, now a wife and a mother.
How would she look? Would her face have that old-time peachy bloom, her mouth that peculiar beautiful curve? She was large and fair, he recalled, hair yellow and shining, eyes blue—
He roused himself. This was nonsense! He was trembling. He composed himself by looking around again.
"The old scoundrel has let the weeds choke out the flowers and surround the bee-hives. Old man Kinney never believed in anything but a petty utility."
Will set his teeth, and marched up to the door and struck it like a man delivering a challenge. Kinney opened the door, and started back in fear when he saw who it was.
"How de do? How de do?" said Will, walking in, his eyes fixed on a woman seated beyond, a child in her lap.
Agnes rose, without a word; a fawn-like, startled widening of the eyes, her breath coming quick, and her face flushing. They couldn't speak; they only looked at each other an instant, then Will shivered, passed his hand over his eyes and sat down.
There was no one there but the old people, who were looking at him in bewilderment. They did not notice any confusion in Agnes's face. She recovered first.
"I'm glad to see you back, Will," she said, rising and putting the sleeping child down in a neighboring room. As she gave him her hand, he said:
"I'm glad to get back, Agnes. I hadn't ought to have gone." Then he turned to the old people:
"I'm Will Hannan. You needn't be scared, Daddy; I was jokin' last night."
"Dew tell! I want o' know!" exclaimed Granny. "Wal, I never! An, you're my little Willy boy who ust 'o he in my class? Well! Well! W'y, pa, ain't he growed tall! Grew handsome tew. I ust 'o think he was a dretful humly boy; but my sakes, that mustache—"
"Wal, he give me a turrible scare last night. My land! scared me out of a year's growth," cackled the old man.
This gave them all a chance to laugh, and the air was cleared. It gave Agnes time to recover herself, and to be able to meet Will's eyes. Will himself was powerfully moved; his throat swelled and tears came to his eyes every time he looked at her.
She was worn and wasted incredibly. The blue of her eyes seemed dimmed and faded by weeping, and the old-time scarlet of her lips had been washed away. The sinews of her neck showed painfully when she turned her head, and her trembling hands were worn, discolored, and lumpy at the joints.
Poor girl! She knew she was under scrutiny, and her eyes felt hot and restless. She wished to run away and cry, but she dared not. She stayed, while Will began to tell her of his life and to ask questions about old friends.
The old people took it up and relieved her of any share in it; and Will, seeing that she was suffering, told some funny stories which made the old people cackle in spite of themselves.
But it was forced merriment on Will's part. Once or twice Agnes smiled, with just a little flash of the old-time sunny temper. But there was no dimple in the cheek now, and the smile had more suggestion of an invalid—or even a skeleton. He was almost ready to take her in his arms and weep, her face appealed so pitifully to him.
"It's most time f'r Ed to be gittin' back, ain't it, pa?"
"Sh'd say 't was! He jest went over to Hobkirk's to trade horses. It's dretful tryin' to me to have him go off tradin' horses on Sunday. Seems if he might wait till a rainy day, 'r do it evenin's. I never did believe in horse-tradin' anyhow."
"Have y' come back to stay, Willie?" asked the old lady.
"Well—it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at Agnes.
"Well, Agnes, ain't you goin' to git no dinner? I'm 'bout ready f'r dinner. We must git to church early to-day. Elder Wheat is goin' to preach, an' they'll be a crowd. He's goin' to hold communion."
"You'll stay to dinner, Will?" asked Agnes.
"Yes—if you wish it."
"I do wish it."
"Thank you; I want to have a good visit with you. I don't know when I'll see you again."
As she moved about, getting dinner on the table, Will sat with gloomy face, listening to the "clack" of the old man. The room was a poor little sitting room, with furniture worn and shapeless; hardly a touch of pleasant color, save here and there a little bit of Agnes's handiwork. The lounge, covered with calico, was rickety; the rocking-chair matched it, and the carpet of rags was patched and darned with twine in twenty places. Everywhere was the influence of the Kinneys. The furniture looked like them, in fact.
Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not escape Mrs. Kinney's hawk-like eyes.
"Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in one o' my blue chainy saucers? Now you know I don't allow that saucer to be took down by nobody. I don't see what's got into yeh! Anybody'd s'pose you never see any comp'ny b'fore—wouldn't they, pa?"
"Sh'd say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a long story about Ed. "Seems if we couldn't keep anything in this house sep'rit from the rest. Ed he uses my curry-comb—"
He launched out a long list of grievances, to which Will shut his ears as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, when there came a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate.
"Good land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the worst I ever see. I'll bet that's my grapevine plate. If it is—Well, of all the mercies, it ain't! But it might 'a' ben. I never see your beat—never! That's the third plate since I came to live here."
"Oh, look-a-here, Granny," said Will, desperately, "don't make so much fuss about the plate. What's