his wife looked up at him with recognition in her eyes.
"This is the end, Nathaniel," she said in so low a whisper that he laid
his ear to her lips to hear. "Don't let anybody in till I'm gone. I don't
want 'em to see how happy I look." Her face wore, indeed, an unearthly
look of beatitude.

"Nathaniel," she went on, "I hope there's no life after this--for _me_
anyway. I don't think I ever had very much soul. It was always enough for
me to live in the valley with you. When I go back into the ground I'll be
where I belong. I ain't fit for heaven, and, anyway, I'm tired. We've
lived hard, you and I, Nathaniel; we loved hard when we were young, and
we've lived all our lives right out to the end. Now I want to rest."

The old man sat down heavily in a chair by the bed. His lips quivered, but
he said nothing. His wife's brief respite from pain had passed as suddenly
as it came, and her huge frame began again to shake in the agony of
straining breath. She managed to speak between gasps.

"Don't let a soul in here, Nathaniel. I'll be gone in a few minutes.
I don't want 'em to see----"

The old man stepped to the door and locked it. As he came back, the sick
woman motioned him to come closer.

"Natty, I thought I could keep it, but I never did have a secret from you,
and I can't die without telling you, if there _is_ a heaven and
hell----Oh, Natty, I've done a wicked thing and I'm dying without
repenting. I'd do it again. That time you went to Mrs. Warner's with the
pattern--this cold I got that day I went out----"

Her husband interrupted her. For the first time in years he did not call
her "mother," but used the pet name of their courtship. The long years of
their parenthood had vanished. They had gone back to the days when each
had made up all the world to the other. "I know, Matey," he said. "I met
young Warner out in the road and give the pattern to him, and I come right
back, and see you sitting out there. I knew what 'twas for."

His wife stared at him, amazement silencing her.

"I thought it was the only thing left I could do for you, Matey, to let
you stay there. You know I never wished for anything but that you should
have what you wanted." He had spoken in a steady, even tone, which now
broke into an irrepressible wail of selfish, human anguish. "But you leave
me all _alone_, Matey! How can I get on without you! I thought I'd die
myself as I sat inside the house watching you. You're all I ever had,
Matey! All