it come on him suddin. The night before we was
together--and--and he didn't have nothin' on his mind but plans for him
and me ... and he was that happy, Mr. Baines!... I wisht I could make
out what turned a good man into a thief--all in a minute, as you might
say. It's suthin', Mr. Baines, suthin' out of the ordinary, and always I
got a feelin' like I got a right to know."

"Yes," said Scattergood, "seems as though you had a right to know."

"Folks is passin' it about that he's comin' home. Is there any truth
into it?"

"I calc'late it's jest talk," said Scattergood. "Nobody knows where he
is."

"He'll come sometime," she said.

"And you calc'late to keep on waitin' fer him to come?"

"Until I'm dead--and after that, if it's allowed."

"I wisht," said Scattergood, "there was suthin' I could do to mend it
all."

"Nobody kin ever do anythin'," she said.... "But if he should venture
back, calc'latin' it had all blown over and been forgot!... His father'd
see him put in prison--and I--I couldn't bear that, it seems as though."

"There's a bad thing about borrowin' trouble," said Scattergood. "No
matter how hard you try, you can't ever pay it back. Wait till he
croaks, and then do your worryin'."

"I've got a feelin' he's goin' to come," she said, and turned away
wearily. "I thought maybe you'd know. That's why I came in, Mr. Baines."

"G'-by, Mattie. G'-by. Come ag'in when you feel that way, and you
needn't to buy no tack hammer for an excuse."

Scattergood slumped down in his chair on the store's piazza, and began
pulling his round cheeks as if he had taken up with some new method of
massage. It was a sign of inward disturbance. Presently a hand stole
downward to the laces of his shoes--a gesture purely automatic--and in a
moment, to the accompaniment of a sigh of relief, his broad feet were
released from bondage and his liberty-loving toes were wriggling with
delight. Any resident of Coldriver passing at that moment could have
told you Scattergood Baines was wrestling with some grave difficulty.

"It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that ever'body has a reason
for ever'thing, except lunatics, and lunatics think they got a reason.
Now, Mavin he wa'n't no lunatic. He wouldn't have stole church money and
run off the night before his weddin' jest to exercise his feet. They
hain't no reason, as I recall it, why he needed two hunderd dollars.
Unless it was to git married on.... And instid of that, it bust