and all, I don't like to leave you with things this way."

"A precious lot you care how you leave things--going off at your age and
getting into this awful war when there ain't a particle of need of it."

"Ain't we had that all out once?"

"And then you stand up there and defend that woman."

"Now, Pearl----"

"Yes, you are! You're defending her, and I shouldn't wonder if you
didn't think as much of her as ever you did in your heart of hearts. Oh,
if you only knew how it wrings me to think of you and she together!"

"There, there! Why, in those days I hadn't so much as--I didn't so much
as know you were on earth."

"We can't ever forget our first loves," said Pearl. "It's no use your
standing up there and letting on. I know what I know. Put out the light
and get into bed. Your feet are getting cold standing there that way."

Her mouth turned into the pillow, she went on: "I remember just as well
as if it was yesterday when her father lay dying--you know how much he
thought of that horse of his, and how it always had red tassels hung on
its ears the first day of spring, and the brass on the harness was
enough to put your eyes out, he worked over it so. He thought the world
of that horse, and when he see he was going to go, he got up and said,
'Hat, shoot the horse. I won't be quiet in my grave for thinking what
kind of treatment it may be getting.' And what does she do but out into
the barn and shoot the gun into the air, and come back and let on like
the horse is gone. And her poor father lying there at his last gasp."

"Still and all," said Elmer, "wouldn't it have been kind of too bad to
put a young horse like that out of its misery? It warn't a day over ten
years old."

"And now what?" continued Pearl. "I heard only to-day that she's been to
the first selectman about having our place here condemned on the ground
that it's unsafe. And the next thing I know I'll be turned out of house
and home and won't know which way to turn nor where to lay my head.
After I've slaved like a dog all my life and worse--and what thanks do I
get for it? Why, my husband--walks away--and leaves me--in the lurch.
That's how much he--thinks of me. Ain't you _never_ coming to bed?"

Elmer, who had stood listening, now in fact had his lips ready puffed to
blow out the light.

But he did not blow.

Instead he said, "My soul and body, what was that?"

A fearful sound smote upon their ears. Something had shouldered the
house. The