t
natural for a man who is as jealous as--as you always have been
even--even of the dead--to set up and talk that way."

"Jealous?" he said, half musingly. "I don't think I'm a jealous man.
Anyways, I don't think a feller would have the right to be jealous of a
man that was dead and under ground. As I look at it now, I don't think a
man has a right, in the best sense, to marry a widow; and in the same
way a widower has no right to lay aside his past memories if they are
the right sort. They ought to be his best company in his loneliness. Of
course, now that you and me are linked together by law and religion, we
owe it to the community we live in to do our duty and make the best--I
mean, to live along as friendly and harmoniously as we can."

She sank down to the seat again, and sat staring at him fixedly.
Presently, seeing that he was not going to resume speaking, she said: "I
believe, on my soul, Alfred, you have plumb lost your senses. I may or
may not be responsible for it; you may have let all this talk about Dick
and my--my thinking about him prey on your mind till it is unhinged.
Why, what I done about his grave and memory wasn't anything but respect
that was due to him, and has nothing to do with our agreement. You've
hurt my feelings, Alfred--you actually have."

She rose suddenly, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, she started
toward the door. She moved slowly, as if she expected him to call her
back, as he had frequently done in the past; but he seemed to be
oblivious of her presence and not to have heard her last plaintive
appeal, for he sat gazing at the light in Dixie Hart's cottage like an
unwakable man. She came slowly back, now with stiff, indignant
strides--strides which dug deeply into the unoffending turf.

"You certainly are either crazy or a plumb fool!" she fired at him. "You
said once that folks hinted that I was cracked in the upper story from
the way I acted, but the shoe is on the other foot now. If folks don't
say you are out of your head it is because they ain't here to listen to
your meandering. A man that will set up and hint to a wife who he loves,
and always has loved, that he's willing for her to still care for and
cherish another person--I say a man like that is in need of a doctor's
advice."

"Well, I was just trying to justify you and your acts," Henley answered
in pained retaliation, "and to show you that I had no ill-will in any
shape or form. You loved Dick in the right s