ssamine (though he was never subtle
or cruel enough to plan such a thing) missed him, and thus in her
loneliness had the chance to learn how much he had been to her.

Though pressed to stay indefinitely beneath Mrs. Pierce's hospitable
roof, the girl, after lingering awhile, and going often to that nook in
the hill by Riverside, took her departure. She was restless, yet clung
to the neighborhood. It was with a wrench that she fixed her going when
I told her of my own journey back to the railroad. In Buffalo she walked
to the court-house and stood a moment as if bidding this site of one
life-memory farewell, and from the stage she watched and watched the
receding town and mountains. "It's awful to be leaving him!" she said.
"Excuse me for acting so in front of you." With the poignant emptiness
overcoming her in new guise, she blamed herself for not waiting in
Illinois until he had been sent to Joliet, for then, so near home, he
must have gone with her.

How could I tell her that Nate's death was the best end that could have
come to him? But I said: "You know you don't think it was your fault.
You know you would do the same again." She listened to me, but her eyes
had no interest in them. "He never knew pain," I pursued, "and he died
doing the thing he liked best in the world. He was happy and enjoying
himself, and you gave him that. It's bad only for you. Some would talk
religion, but I can't."

"Yes," she answered, "I can think of him so glad to be free. Thank you
for saying that about religion. Do you think it's wicked not to want
it--to hate it sometimes? I hope it's not. Thank you, truly."

During our journey she summoned her cheerfulness, and all that she said
was wholesome. In the robust, coarse soundness of her fibre, the
wounds of grief would heal and leave no sickness--perhaps no higher
sensitiveness to human sufferings than her broad native kindness already
held. We touched upon religion again, and my views shocked her Kentucky
notions, for I told her Kentucky locked its religion in an iron cage
called Sunday, which made it very savage and fond of biting strangers.
Now and again I would run upon that vein of deep-seated prejudice that
was in her character like some fine wire. In short, our disagreements
brought us to terms more familiar than we had reached hitherto. But when
at last Separ came, where was I? There stood Mr. McLean waiting, and at
the suddenness of him she had no time to remember herself, but