want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that old
miserly Isom!" she stormed. "You're just as bad as he is; you ain't got
a soft spot in your heart."

"Yes, I'd rather see you stay here with Isom and do a nigger woman's
work, like you have been doing ever since you married him, than let you
go away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you'd have to face with
him would kill you quicker than work, and you'd suffer a thousand times
more sorrow."

"What do you know about it?" she sneered. "You never loved anybody.
That's the way with you religious fools--you don't get any fun out of
life yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else's. Well, you'll
not spoil mine, I tell you. I'll go to Morgan this very night, and you
can't stop me!"

"Well, we'll see about that, Ollie," he told her, showing a little
temper. "I told him that I'd keep you here if I had to tie you, and I'll
do that, too, if I have to. Isom----"

"Isom, Isom!" she mocked. "Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell the
old fool what you saw--tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, and
tell him more! Tell the old devil I hate him, and always did hate him;
tell him I've got out of bed in the middle of the night more than once
to get the ax and kill him in his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead and
in hell, where he belongs, and I'm sorry I didn't send him there! What
do I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneaking
spy!"

"I'll go with you to the road if you want to see if he's there," Joe
offered.

Ollie's fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood had
divested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke to her now as he would
have reasoned with a child.

"No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or something like that,
and he went away," said she. "You couldn't scare him, he wouldn't run
from you. Tomorrow he'll send me word, and I'll go to him in spite of
you and Isom and everything else. I don't care--I don't care--you're
mean to me, too! you're as mean as you can be!"

She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her arm
to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend of her elbow. Her shoulders
heaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury which
she seemed to think she bore.

Joe put his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't take on that way about it, Ollie," said he.

"Oh, oh!" she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now; "why couldn't
you have been kind to