. I believed it--from the bottom of my soul I
believed it, and--and, my friends, listen! I got her to believe it. I
saw that she doubted it a little, and I worked and worked, and argued
and argued, till finally I got her to believe it. But even then I'd have
failed if Mrs. Trott hadn't--hadn't helped me. Mrs. Trott believed he
was dead, and it was her belief and my talk that finally convinced
Tilly. But now what is to be done?"

"Why, nothing that I can see," Mrs. Cavanaugh answered. "All you have to
do is to show Tilly that in no sense of the word is she bound by her
first marriage. You seem to think she is worried over that."

Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath. "You don't
understand yet," he said, with a low groan. "She is excited--so excited
that she can't sleep, but it is not the kind of excitement you think it
is. She's heard the report that John Trott is still alive and she is
afraid that it may not--by some chance--be true. I don't mean that she'd
ever live with him again--now that she is--is a mother, or that she'd
hold it against me for marrying her as I did; but to know that no harm
came to him will make her happier than she's been for many a day. That
is a thing I've got to face. She is the mother of my children, but she
has never given me her whole heart and soul. She gave them to John
Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that
he left here for her sake, _and died for her sake_. Do you think I don't
know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these
years--do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She
always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that
she herself will turn against him now? In the name of God, what excuse
would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he
does?"

"I never looked at it that way," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "You are getting
me all mixed up. Does Mrs. Trott-- Have any of the reports got to her?"

"No, not yet; but Tilly will want to tell her, now that there is no
doubt as to the truth. I must tell my wife what I have just learned. It
is my duty to tell her. Yes, yes, I must tell her. I'm honor-bound at
once to give her all the joy in my power."

It was as if both Cavanaugh and his wife could think of nothing in the
way of comfort for Eperson, and, taking his reins into a better grasp
and touching his hat politely, he mounted his wagon and drove away.

C