nctha what it was he knew now, that
which Jane Harden, just a week ago, had told him. He knew very well
that for him it was certain that he had to say it. It was hard, but
for Jeff Campbell the only way to lose it was to say it, the only way
to know Melanctha really, was to tell her all the struggle he had
made to know her, to tell her so she could help him to understand his
trouble better, to help him so that never again he could have any way
to doubt her.

Jeff lay there a long time, very quiet, always looking up above him,
and yet feeling very close now to Melanctha. At last he turned a
little toward her, took her hands closer in his to make him feel it
stronger, and then very slowly, for the words came very hard for him,
slowly he began his talk to her.

"Melanctha," began Jeff, very slowly, "Melanctha, it ain't right I
shouldn't tell you why I went away last week and almost never got the
chance again to see you. Jane Harden was sick, and I went in to take
care of her. She began to tell everything she ever knew about you. She
didn't know how well now I know you. I didn't tell her not to go
on talking. I listened while she told me everything about you. I
certainly found it very hard with what she told me. I know she was
talking truth in everything she said about you. I knew you had been
free in your ways, Melanctha, I knew you liked to get excitement the
way I always hate to see the colored people take it. I didn't
know, till I heard Jane Harden say it, you had done things so bad,
Melanctha. When Jane Harden told me, I got very sick, Melanctha. I
couldn't bear hardly, to think, perhaps I was just another like them
to you, Melanctha. I was wrong not to trust you perhaps, Melanctha,
but it did make things very ugly to me. I try to be honest to you,
Melanctha, the way you say you really want it from me."

Melanctha drew her hands from Jeff Campbell. She sat there, and there
was deep scorn in her anger.

"If you wasn't all through just selfish and nothing else, Jeff
Campbell, you would take care you wouldn't have to tell me things like
this, Jeff Campbell."

Jeff was silent a little, and he waited before he gave his answer. It
was not the power of Melanctha's words that held him, for, for them,
he had his answer, it was the power of the mood that filled Melanctha,
and for that he had no answer. At last he broke through this awe, with
his slow fighting resolution, and he began to give his answer.

"I don't say eve