t Joel is
sorter worried about--about its effect on Tilly."

Eperson nodded as if acquiescing to a statement too delicate to be
discussed, and remained silent, a wilted look of despair on him.

"I see, I see," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "I was wondering how she would take
it. She's never been exactly like other women. Few women would
have--have, you know what I mean, Joel--would have acted like she has
all along in regard to John's mother. I must say, and I know that you
will agree with me, that she showed herself to be a wonderfully good
Christian woman. Why, sometimes it looked to me like she loved Mrs.
Trott more than she did even her own mother. But she's been
rewarded--oh, you know she's been gloriously rewarded! Your sweet little
wife, Joel, has saved the very soul and body of a lone, lost woman. But
you helped--oh yes! if it hadn't been for you she never could have done
it. And you deserve your reward, too. In my opinion you have been a man
amongst a million in all you have done in that matter."

"I don't deserve your praise, Mrs. Cavanaugh," Eperson sighed. "I did it
all for Tilly. She was unhappy till we began to help Mrs. Trott. I saw
where the trouble lay, and did a little, that's all."

"And are you worried about how Tilly will take the news about John?"
Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, while her husband hung open-mouthed on Eperson's
answer.

"I don't know how exactly to make you understand the--the situation,"
Joel stammered. "But I reckon I may as well say, and be done with it,
that--that--" He went no farther, his words piling one upon another on
his helpless tongue, his great, tender eyes bulging from their
dark-ringed sockets.

"You can't mean that she would be worried about the divorce." Mrs.
Cavanaugh feebly came to his assistance. "Sam and I were talking that
over. There is no doubt that it was legal in every way. Old Whaley saw
to that. Narrow-minded and hard as he was, he acted for the best in that
case."

"I see you don't understand." Joel dug the toe of his coarse shoe into a
tuft of grass and mechanically pounded it with his heel. "You don't
understand, because you don't know Tilly as well as I do. Mrs.
Cavanaugh, how can I put it any better than to--to say that--no matter
what was done in court, no matter what John Trott did that might be
called 'desertion,' Tilly would never have married again if she had
thought he was alive. I'd never have dared to ask her to marry me if I
hadn't thought he was dead