e, I--"

"Seth Bascom, what do you mean?"

"Just what I say. Emeline, you and me was mighty happy together once.
Let's try it again. I will, if you will."

She was staring at him in good earnest now.

"Why, Seth!" she exclaimed. "What are you talkin' about? You--the
chronic woman-hater!"

"That be blessed! I wa'n't really a woman-hater. I only thought I was.
And--and I never hated you. Right through the worst of it I never did.
Let's try it again, Emeline. You're in trouble. You need somebody to
help you. Give me the chance."

There was a wistful look in her eyes; she seemed, or so he thought, to
be wavering. But she shook her head. "I was in trouble before, Seth,"
she said, "and you didn't help me then. You run off and left me."

"You just as much as told me to go. You know you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Well, you didn't tell me to stay."

"It never seemed to me that a husband--if he was a man--would need to be
coaxed to stay by his wife."

"But don't you care about me at all? You used to; I know it. And I
always cared for you. What is it? Honest, Emeline, you never took any
stock in that Sarah Ann Christy doin's, you know you didn't; now, did
you?"

She was close to tears, but she smiled in spite of them.

"Well, no, Seth," she answered. "I will confess that Sarah Ann never
worried me much."

"Then DON'T you care for me, Emeline?"

"I care for you much as I ever did. I never stopped carin' for you, fool
that I am. But as for livin' with you again and runnin' the risk of--"

"You won't run any risk. You say I've improved, yourself. Your principal
fault with me was, as I understand it, that I was too--too--somethin'
or other. That I wa'n't man enough. By jiminy crimps, I'll show you that
I'm a man! Give me the chance, and nothin' nor nobody can make me leave
you again. Besides, there's nobody to come between us now. We was all
right until that--that Bennie D. came along. He was the one that took
the starch out of me. Now he's out of the way. HE won't bother us any
more and . . . Why, what is it, Emeline?"

For she was looking at him with an expression even more strange. And
again she shook her head.

"I guess," she began, and was interrupted by the jingle of the telephone
bell.

The instrument was fastened to the kitchen wall, and the lightkeeper
hastened to answer the ring.

"Testin' the wire after the storm, most likely," he explained, taking
the receiver from the hook. "Hello! . . . Hello! .