mammy," who was with them
during those two years. "Seemed to des tech each other like mahbles at a
single point, stade of meltin' togedder lak two drops of watah runnin'
down a window pane. Mars' David, he done went he own way, drinkin',
gamblin' and cussin'; he lak a madman when he baby die. He seem skeered
when he see Miss Pepeeta. She look at him wid her big black eyes full of
wonder and s'prise, stretch out her li'l han's, and when he run away or
struck her, she des go out to the li'l baby's grave, creeping along lak
a shadder through the gyahden, soft lak and still. Dar she des set down
all alone and sigh lak de breeze in de ole pine tree. Some days she gone
away all alone and de brack folks say she wanner all aroun' in de woods.
When Sunday come, she des slip into de churches lak a li'l mouse and
nibble up de gospel crumbs and den run away before de priests cotch her.
Dark days dose, in de ole Ballantrae mansion! And den come de night when
dey pahted. You done heah about dat?"

The old colored mammy was right. "They just grew apart," as it was
inevitable that they should. Perfect self-manifestation is the true
principle and law of love, and when a guilty secret comes between two
lovers, suspicion and fear inevitably result. They become
incomprehensible to each other.

David's secret preyed upon him night and day like that insect which,
having once entered the brain of an elk, gnaws ceaselessly at it until
the miserable victim's last breath is drawn. While he retained for
Pepeeta a devotion which tormented him with its intensity, his guilt
made him tremble in her presence. He shuddered when he approached her,
like a worshiper who enters a shrine with a stolen offering. Instead of
calming and soothing him as she would have done had he only suffered
some misfortune instead of committing a sin, she filled him with an
unendurable agitation. If the nerves are diseased, a flute can rasp them
as terribly as a file.

As for Pepeeta, she must have been bewildered by this phenomenon which
she could not possibly comprehend, for while she saw her lover swayed
from his orbit she could not see the planet which produced the
disturbance. Feeling that he had not given her his full confidence she
resented his distrust, and as his melancholy and irritability increased,
withdrew more and more into herself, and in that solitude sought the
companionship of God.

It was a frightful discipline; but she was sanctified by it.

Day by