und of devil's revelry and a
shrill-voiced woman singing--a woman the like of which he had tried to
make my Merridy. I never skulked or sneaked in those days, and no man
ever made me take back roads, so I came up to his house from the front
and tied my horse to his gate-post. She heard me on the steps and
opened the door.

"'You sent for me,' said I. 'Where is he?' But he had gone away to a
neighboring camp, and wouldn't be back until morning, at which I felt
the way a thief must feel, for I'd hoped to meet him in his own house,
and I wasn't the kind to go calling when the husband was out. I
couldn't think very clearly, however, because of the change in her. She
was so thin and worn and sad, sadder than any woman I'd ever seen, and
she wasn't the girl I'd known three years before. I guess I'd changed a
heap myself; anyhow, that was the first thing she spoke about, and the
tears came into her eyes as she breathed:

"'Poor boy! poor boy! You took it very hard, didn't you?'"

"'You sent for me,' said I. 'Which road did he take?'"

"'There's nothing you can do to him,' she answered back. 'I sent for
you to make sure that you still love me."

"'Did you ever doubt it?' said I, at which she began to cry, sobbing
like a woman who has worn out all emotion.

"'Can you feel the same after what I've made you suffer?' she said, and
I reckon she must have read the answer in my eyes; for I never was much
good at talking, and the sight of her, so changed, had taken the speech
out of me, leaving nothing but aches and pains and ashes in its place.
When she saw what she wished to know, she told me the story, the whole
miserable story, that I'd heard enough of to suspect. Why she'd married
the other man she couldn't explain herself, except that it was a
woman's whim--I had stayed away and he had come the oftener--part pique
and part the man's dare-devil fascination, I reckon; but a month had
shown her how she really stood, and had shown him, too. Likewise, she
saw the sort of man he was and the kind of life he lived. At last he
got rough and cruel to her, trying every way to break her spirit; and
even the baby didn't stop him--it made him worse, if anything--till he
swore he'd make them both the kind he was, for her goodness seemed to
rile and goad him; and, having lived with the kind of woman you have to
beat, he tried it on her. Then she knew her fight was hopeless, and she
sent for me."

"'He's a fiend,' she told me. 'I've stood