hankful he found her out in
time."

"Finding her out ain't going to lighten the blow." Mrs. Henley shrugged
her shoulders. "When a man--or a _woman_, for that matter--has full
faith in a person, and finds out that the person ain't anything like he
used to be, why, a body hardly knows what _to_ think. I'm glad I'm
going away, Alfred. You showed me this morning when I give you that
chance to take me about a little here and there that you are changed.
When I'm away you'll realize what you've missed, and I'll be glad of it.
Absence, on my side, is the medicine you need to restore your senses."

"Well, we'll all certainly miss you." Henley was too honest--at least in
domestic matters--to know that his assertion was insincere, and
accustomed as he was in his dealings among men to assume exactly the
shade of tone or set of face that went best with a statement, he now had
as complete an air of regret and discomfort as the most exacting of
wives could have wished.

"Well, I'm getting the drive I asked for," was her parting shot, and she
leaned over and gave him a cold, stiff hand. "I'm taking it all by
myself, as most married women have to do if they don't seek the
attention of other men. But I'm going to do my duty to a human sufferer,
and in that I'll get my reward."

He walked back to the store thoughtfully. "She's gone!" he said to
himself. "She's ripping mad and got it in for me, that's certain. She's
begun on a new line, and I'll bet she makes me smoke before she's
through with me. I know what she wants well enough, but somehow I just
can't do it. I might at one time, but I couldn't now to save my neck
from the loop. The old man is plumb right. When a feller's love gets
cold on the inside he can't warm it up by external applications. He's a
matrimonial misfit, and the sooner he realizes it and is resigned the
better he'll feel."

CHAPTER XXXI

"Well, the old gal's gone," Wrinkle remarked that day at sundown when
Henley came in at the gate and found him seated on a dismantled beehive
in the yard. "I reckon you seed 'er spin through town. For a woman goin'
out as a sick-nuss or spiritual comforter to a chap kicked by a
high-steppin' filly she certainly had a supply of frills and ruffles.
Them valises was packed as tight as a compressed cotton-bale. She left
behind her one solid wail of woe. Jane is afraid she'll never gratify
yore taste for grub as well as Het did, an' she's in thar now humpin'
herself to con