nt finery when my heart is breaking?"

Holcroft drove away, looking and feeling as if he were going to a
funeral. At last he broke out, "I can't stand this another day.
Tomorrow's Sunday, and I'll manage to send Jane somewhere or take Alida
out to walk and tell her the whole truth. She shall be made to see
that I can't help myself and that I'm willing to do anything she
wishes. She's married to me and has got to make the best of it, and
I'm sure I'm willing to make it as easy as I can."

Jane was a little perplexed at the condition of affairs. Mrs. Holcroft
had left her husband alone as far as possible, as she had advised, but
apparently it had not helped matters much. But she believed that the
trouble she had witnessed bode her no ill and so was inclined to regard
it philosophically. "He looks almost as glum, when he's goin' round
alone, as if he'd married mother. She talked too much, and that didn't
please him; this one talks less and less, and he don't seem pleased,
nuther, but it seems to me he's very foolish to be so fault-findin'
when she does everything for him top-notch. I never lived so well in
my life, nor he, nuther, I believe. He must be in a bad way when he
couldn't eat that cherry pie."

Alida was so weary and felt so ill that she went to the parlor and lay
down upon the lounge. "My heart feels as if it were bleeding slowly
away," she murmured. "If I'm going to be sick the best thing I can do
is to die and end it all," and she gave way to that deep dejection in
which there seems no remedy for trouble.

The hours dragged slowly by; Jane finished her household tasks very
leisurely, then taking a basket, went out to the garden to pick some
early peas. While thus engaged, she saw a man coming up the lane. His
manner instantly riveted her attention and awakened her curiosity, and
she crouched lower behind the pea vines for concealment. All her
furtive, watchful instincts were awake, and her conscience was clear,
too, for certainly she had a right to spy upon a stranger.

The man seemed almost as furtive as herself; his eyes were everywhere
and his step slow and hesitating. Instead of going directly to the
house he cautiously entered the barn, and she heard him a little later
call Mr. Holcroft. Of course there was no answer, and as if reassured,
he approached the house, looking here and there on every side,
seemingly to see if anyone was about. Jane had associated with men and
boys too long to