recited
the obvious aspect of his connection at the camp meeting with Meta Beggs.

"It sounds all right as far as it goes," she retorted; "but I'll chance
there's a good deal more; I'll chance you had it made up to meet her
there. You would never have gone for any other reason; I don't believe you
have been to a revival for twenty years. You had it made up between you.
And that Miss Beggs is too smart for you, she'll fool you all over the
mountain. I don't like her either, and I don't want you to give her the
satisfaction of making up to you. It's what she'd like--laughing at my
back!"

"Miss Beggs never spoke any harm of you."

She made a gesture, hopeless, impatient, at his innocence. Her resentment
burst out again, "Why does she want to speak to you--another woman's
husband? Anybody knows it's low down. When did you see her? What did you
talk about?"

"Of course when I see her coming I ought to go 'round by South Fork," he
replied, heavily sarcastic.

"Well, you don't have to stand and talk like I warrant you do. There's
something deep about her look."

"I've taken care of myself for some years, and I guess I can keep on."

"You can if you want to go to ruin, like you were when I married you, and
you only had one shirt to your name."

"Throw it up to me. It's no wonder a man drinks here, he's got more to
forget than to think about." He stepped from the porch, preparing to
leave.

"Wait!" she commanded; "I'll put up with being left, and having you drink
all night with the beasts, and fooling my money away, but," her voice rose
and her eyes burned over dark shadows, "I won't put up with another woman,
I won't put up with that thin thing making over my husband. I won't! I
won't! do you understand that.... I--I can't."

He went around the corner of the house with her last words ringing in his
ears, kicking angrily at the rough sod. His house, between Mrs. Caley's
glum silence and Lettice's ceaseless complaining, was becoming
uninhabitable. And, as Rutherford Berry had pointed out, the latter would
only increase, sharpen, with the years. Lettice was a good wife, she was
not like Nickles' old woman, worthless but the pleasantest body you'd
meet in a day on a horse. She was not like Meta Beggs. He had never seen
any other like the latter. Lettice had said that she would fool him all
over the mountain ... but not him, not Gordon Makimmon, he thought
complacently.

He was well versed in the ways of women; he wo