k to go to see him since his wife's death; and I
should think now's when her love for them would show out."

"I wish to God she would ask to go anywhere. I'm tired of the kind of life
we're leading," John said in a manner which supported his words.

The weariness of life was modified, or at least shifted from one shoulder
to the other for John Hunter by the increasing burden of financial
worries. In this also he was denied any comfort or assistance from
Elizabeth; she asked no questions, and if he talked of notes which were
falling due, or of interest soon to be paid, she listened without remark,
and moved about her endless round of cleaning, cooking, or sewing
apparently absorbed in the work in hand. If he complained about expenses,
the only reply he received was for the food on the table to be of a
plainer quality and a lessened grocery bill the next time he went to town.
This he would not permit, being sensitive about the opinions of the men
who worked for him. Elizabeth never remarked upon the matter of keeping
three men through the winter as she would have done a year ago when there
was little to do which counted in farm affairs. She left her husband free
to do as he chose on all those matters. She did not sulk; she had lost
hope, she was temporarily beaten. In that first hour after her return from
Aunt Susan's death chamber she had meditated flight. She longed to get
away, to go anywhere where she would never see her husband's face again,
but there was Jack. Jack belonged to his father as much as to her, and
Elizabeth was fair. Besides, she was helpless about the support of the
child. Her health was quite seriously interfered with by the ache in her
back which was always present since the baby's coming. She had told her
mother but two short years before that she would not live with a man who
would treat her as her father treated his wife, and here she found herself
in those few months as enmeshed as her mother had ever been. Aye! even
more so. Hers was a position even more to be feared, because it was more
subtle, more intangible, more refined, and John's rule as determined and
unyielding as that of Josiah Farnshaw.

Having failed to act in that first hour of her trouble, Elizabeth drifted
into inaction. Even her thoughts moved slowly as she pondered on her
situation; her thoughts moved slowly, but they moved constantly. Under all
that quiet of manner was a slow fire of reasoning which was working things
out. Gra