As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drive away, Will studied her, a smothering ache in his heart as he saw how thin and bent and weary she was. In his soul he felt that she was a dying woman unless she had rest and tender care.
As she turned, she saw something in his face—a pity and an agony of self-accusation—that made her weak and white. She sank into a chair, putting her hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing of breath. Then the blood came back to her face and her eyes filled with tears.
"Don't—don't look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His pity hurt her.
At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewildered, like some gentle animal, Will's throat contracted so that he could not speak. His voice came at last in one terrible cry—
"Oh, Agnes! for God's sake forgive me!" He knelt by her side and put his arm about her shoulders and kissed her bowed head. A curious numbness involved his whole body; his voice was husky, the tears burned in his eyes. His whole soul and body ached with his pity and remorseful, self-accusing wrath.
"It was all my fault. Lay it all to me. … I am the one to bear it. … Oh, I've dreamed a thousand times of sayin' this to you, Aggie! I thought if I could only see you again and ask your forgiveness, I'd—" He ground his teeth together in his assault upon himself. "I threw my life away an' killed you—that's what I did!"
He rose, and raged up and down the room till he had mastered himself.
"What did you think I meant that day of the thrashing?" he said, turning suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month or two past.
She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed to be remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks.
"I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know—why—"
He uttered a snarl of self-disgust.
"You couldn't know. Nobody could tell what I meant. But why didn't you write? I was ready to come back. I only wanted an excuse—only a line."
"How could I, Will—after your letter?"
He groaned, and turned away.
"And Will, I—I got mad too. I couldn't write."
"Oh, that letter—I can see every line of it! F'r God's sake, don't think of it again! But I didn't think, even when I wrote that letter, that I'd find you where you are. I didn't think. I hoped, anyhow, Ed Kinney wouldn't—"
She stopped him with a startled look in her great eyes.
"Don't talk about him—it ain't right. I mean it don't do any good. What could I do, after father died? Mother and I. Besides, I waited three years to hear from you, Will."
He gave a strange, choking cry. It burst from his throat—that terrible thing, a man's sob of agony. She went on, curiously calm now.
"Ed was good to me; and he offered a home, anyway, for mother—"
"And all the time I was waiting for some line to break down my cussed pride, so I could write to you and explain. But you did go with Ed to the fair," he ended suddenly, seeking a morsel of justification for himself.
"Yes. But I waited an' waited; and I thought you was mad at me, so when they came I—no, I didn't really go with Ed. There was a wagon-load of them."
"But I started," he explained, "but the wheel came off. I didn't send word because I thought you'd feel sure I'd come. If you'd only trusted me a little more—No! It was all my fault. I acted like a crazy fool. I didn't stop to reason about anything."
They sat in silence after these explanations. The sound of the snapping wings of the grasshoppers came through the windows, and a locust high in a poplar sent down his ringing whir.
"It can't be helped now, Will," Agnes said at last, her voice full of the woman's resignation. "We've got to bear it."
Will straightened up. "Bear it?" He paused. "Yes, I s'pose so. If you hadn't married Ed Kinney! Anybody but him. How did you do it?"
"Oh, I don't know," she answered, wearily brushing her hair back from her eyes. "It seemed best when I did it—and it can't be helped now." There was infinite, dull despair and resignation in her voice.
Will went over to the window. He thought how bright and handsome Ed used to be. "After all, it's no wonder you married him. Life pushes us into such things." Suddenly he turned, something resolute and imperious in his eyes and voice.
"It can be helped, Aggie," he said. "Now just listen to me. We've made an awful mistake. We've lost seven years o' life, but that's no reason why we should waste the rest of it. Now hold on; don't interrupt me just yet. I come back thinking just as much of you as ever. I ain't going to say a word more about Ed; let the past stay past. I'm going to talk about the future."
She looked at him in a daze of wonder as he went on.
"Now I've got some money, I've got a third interest in a ranch, and I've got a standing offer to go back on the Sante Fee road as conductor. There is a team standing out there. I'd like to make another trip to Cedarville—with you—"
"Oh, Will, don't!" she cried; "for pity's sake don't talk—"
"Wait!" he exclaimed, imperiously. "Now look at it. Here you are in hell! Caged up with two old crows picking the life out of you. They'll kill you—I can see it; you're being killed by inches. You can't go anywhere, you can't have anything. Life is just torture for you—"
She gave a little moan of anguish and despair, and turned her face to her chair-back. Her shoulders shook with weeping, but she listened. He went to her and stood with his hand on the chair-back.
His voice trembled and broke. "There's just one way to get out of this, Agnes. Come with me. He don't care for you; his whole idea of women is that they are created for his pleasure and to keep house. Your whole life is agony. Come! Don't cry. There's a chance for life yet."
She didn't speak, but her sobs were less violent; his voice growing stronger reassured her.
"I'm going East, maybe to Europe; and the woman who goes with me will have nothing to do but get strong and well again. I've made you suffer so, I ought to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Come! My wife will sit with me on the deck of the steamer and see the moon rise, and walk with me by the sea, till she gets strong and happy again—till the dimples get back into her cheeks. I never will rest till I see her eyes laugh again."
She rose flushed, wide-eyed, breathing hard with the emotion his vibrant voice called up, but she could not speak. He put his hand gently upon her shoulder, and she sank down again. And he went on with his appeal. There was something hypnotic, dominating, in his voice and eyes.
On his part there was no passion of an ignoble sort, only a passion of pity and remorse, and a sweet, tender, reminiscent love. He did not love the woman before him so much as the girl whose ghost she was—the woman whose promise she was. He held himself responsible for it all, and he throbbed with desire to repair the ravage he had indirectly caused. There was nothing equivocal in his position—nothing to disown. How others might look at it, he did not consider, and did not care. His impetuous soul was carried to a point where nothing came in to mar or divert.
"And then after you're well, after our trip, we'll come back—to Houston, or somewhere in Texas, and I'll build my wife a house that will make her eyes shine. My cattle will give us a good living, and she can have a piano and books, and go to the theatre and concerts. Come, what do you think of that?"
Then she heard his words beneath his voice somehow, and they produced pictures that dazzled her. Luminous shadows moved before her eyes, drifting across the gray background of her poor, starved, work-weary life.
As his voice ceased the rosy clouds faded, and she realized again the faded, musty little room, the calico-covered furniture, and looking down at her own cheap and ill-fitting dress, she saw her ugly hands lying there. Then she cried out with a