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<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton</div>
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<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Ethan Frome</div>
<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Edith Wharton</div>
<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 29, 2002 [eBook #4517]<br />
[Most recently updated: February 17, 2022]</div>
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<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Aldarondo and David Widger</div>
<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHAN FROME ***</div>

    <h1>
      ETHAN FROME
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Edith Wharton
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>ETHAN FROME</b> </a><br /><br /><br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      ETHAN FROME
    </h1>
    <p>
      I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally
      happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
    </p>
    <p>
      If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you
      know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
      the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
      pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and
      the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in
      Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his
      great height that marked him, for the &ldquo;natives&rdquo; were easily singled out by
      their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless
      powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the
      jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face,
      and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and
      was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from
      Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in
      pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
      twenty-four years ago come next February,&rdquo; Harmon threw out between
      reminiscent pauses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The &ldquo;smash-up&rdquo; it was&mdash;I gathered from the same informant&mdash;which,
      besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so
      shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to
      take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window. He used to
      drive in from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own
      hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside
      him while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
      grating. I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom received
      anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put without a
      glance into his sagging pocket. At intervals, however, the post-master
      would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia&mdash;or Mrs.
      Zeena&mdash;Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
      corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of
      his specific. These documents my neighbour would also pocket without a
      glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety,
      and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
    </p>
    <p>
      Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his
      own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on rare
      occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for a word.
      When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the speaker's
      face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached me; then he
      would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in his left hand
      and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was a pretty bad smash-up?&rdquo; I questioned Harmon, looking after Frome's
      retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown head, with
      its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they
      were bent out of shape.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wust kind,&rdquo; my informant assented. &ldquo;More'n enough to kill most men. But
      the Fromes are tough. Ethan'll likely touch a hundred.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to his
      seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box&mdash;also
      with a druggist's label on it&mdash;which he had placed in the back of the
      buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought himself
      alone. &ldquo;That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell
      now!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harmon drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and pressed
      it into the leather pouch of his cheek. &ldquo;Guess he's been in Starkfield too
      many winters. Most of the smart ones get away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why didn't he?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn't ever anybody
      but Ethan. Fust his father&mdash;then his mother&mdash;then his wife.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And then the smash-up?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harmon chuckled sardonically. &ldquo;That's so. He had to stay then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see. And since then they've had to care for him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harmon thoughtfully passed his tobacco to the other cheek. &ldquo;Oh, as to
      that: I guess it's always Ethan done the caring.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral reach
      permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had the
      sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. But one phrase
      stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I grouped my
      subsequent inferences: &ldquo;Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Before my own time there was up I had learned to know what that meant. Yet
      I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural delivery,
      when communication was easy between the scattered mountain villages, and
      the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and Shadd's Falls,
      had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which the youth of the
      hills could descend for recreation. But when winter shut down on
      Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed
      from the pale skies, I began to see what life there&mdash;or rather its
      negation&mdash;must have been in Ethan Frome's young manhood.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
      power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike had
      so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield&mdash;the
      nearest habitable spot&mdash;for the best part of the winter. I chafed at
      first, and then, under the hypnotising effect of routine, gradually began
      to find a grim satisfaction in the life. During the early part of my stay
      I had been struck by the contrast between the vitality of the climate and
      the deadness of the community. Day by day, after the December snows were
      over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents of light and air on the
      white landscape, which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would
      have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as well as
      the blood; but it seemed to produce no change except that of retarding
      still more the sluggish pulse of Starkfield. When I had been there a
      little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by
      long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched
      their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March
      winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why
      Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison
      capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance
      must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines
      of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things,
      I felt the sinister force of Harmon's phrase: &ldquo;Most of the smart ones get
      away.&rdquo; But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles
      have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?
    </p>
    <p>
      During my stay at Starkfield I lodged with a middle-aged widow
      colloquially known as Mrs. Ned Hale. Mrs. Hale's father had been the
      village lawyer of the previous generation, and &ldquo;lawyer Varnum's house,&rdquo;
       where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable
      mansion in the village. It stood at one end of the main street, its
      classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
      between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
      church. It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the two
      women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs. Hale, in
      particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping with her pale
      old-fashioned house.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the &ldquo;best parlour,&rdquo; with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
      illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to another
      and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle. It was not
      that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority to the people
      about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sensibility and a
      little more education had put just enough distance between herself and her
      neighbours to enable her to judge them with detachment. She was not
      unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had great hopes of getting from
      her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's story, or rather such a key to his
      character as should co-ordinate the facts I knew. Her mind was a
      store-house of innocuous anecdote and any question about her acquaintances
      brought forth a volume of detail; but on the subject of Ethan Frome I
      found her unexpectedly reticent. There was no hint of disapproval in her
      reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to speak of him
      or his affairs, a low &ldquo;Yes, I knew them both... it was awful...&rdquo; seeming
      to be the utmost concession that her distress could make to my curiosity.
    </p>
    <p>
      So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation did
      it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case anew to
      my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an
      uncomprehending grunt.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ruth Varnum was always as nervous as a rat; and, come to think of it, she
      was the first one to see 'em after they was picked up. It happened right
      below lawyer Varnum's, down at the bend of the Corbury road, just round
      about the time that Ruth got engaged to Ned Hale. The young folks was all
      friends, and I guess she just can't bear to talk about it. She's had
      troubles enough of her own.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
      troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
      those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's had
      been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the look
      in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty nor
      physical suffering could have put there. Nevertheless, I might have
      contented myself with the story pieced together from these hints had it
      not been for the provocation of Mrs. Hale's silence, and&mdash;a little
      later&mdash;for the accident of personal contact with the man.
    </p>
    <p>
      On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
      the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
      entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where I
      had to pick up my train for the Junction. But about the middle of the
      winter Eady's horses fell ill of a local epidemic. The illness spread to
      the other Starkfield stables and for a day or two I was put to it to find
      a means of transport. Then Harmon Gow suggested that Ethan Frome's bay was
      still on his legs and that his owner might be glad to drive me over.
    </p>
    <p>
      I stared at the suggestion. &ldquo;Ethan Frome? But I've never even spoken to
      him. Why on earth should he put himself out for me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harmon's answer surprised me still more. &ldquo;I don't know as he would; but I
      know he wouldn't be sorry to earn a dollar.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
      acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
      the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
      words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, matters ain't gone any too well with him,&rdquo; Harmon said. &ldquo;When a
      man's been setting round like a hulk for twenty years or more, seeing
      things that want doing, it eats inter him, and he loses his grit. That
      Frome farm was always 'bout as bare's a milkpan when the cat's been round;
      and you know what one of them old water-mills is wuth nowadays. When Ethan
      could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked a living out
      of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then, and I don't see
      how he makes out now. Fust his father got a kick, out haying, and went
      soft in the brain, and gave away money like Bible texts afore he died.
      Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years as weak as a baby;
      and his wife Zeena, she's always been the greatest hand at doctoring in
      the county. Sickness and trouble: that's what Ethan's had his plate full
      up with, ever since the very first helping.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
      the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin, made
      room for me in the sleigh at his side. After that, for a week, he drove me
      over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the afternoon met
      me again and carried me back through the icy night to Starkfield. The
      distance each way was barely three miles, but the old bay's pace was slow,
      and even with firm snow under the runners we were nearly an hour on the
      way. Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins loosely held in his left
      hand, his brown seamed profile, under the helmet-like peak of the cap,
      relieved against the banks of snow like the bronze image of a hero. He
      never turned his face to mine, or answered, except in monosyllables, the
      questions I put, or such slight pleasantries as I ventured. He seemed a
      part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe,
      with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface;
      but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he
      lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I
      had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his
      personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon
      Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
    </p>
    <p>
      Only once or twice was the distance between us bridged for a moment; and
      the glimpses thus gained confirmed my desire to know more. Once I happened
      to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year in Florida,
      and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us and that in
      which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise Frome said
      suddenly: &ldquo;Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while afterward I
      could call up the sight of it in winter. But now it's all snowed under.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He said no more, and I had to guess the rest from the inflection of his
      voice and his sharp relapse into silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another day, on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed a volume of
      popular science&mdash;I think it was on some recent discoveries in
      bio-chemistry&mdash;which I had carried with me to read on the way. I
      thought no more about it till I got into the sleigh again that evening,
      and saw the book in Frome's hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I found it after you were gone,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual
      silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to
      the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his
      face to mine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There are things in that book that I didn't know the first word about,&rdquo;
       he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      I wondered less at his words than at the queer note of resentment in his
      voice. He was evidently surprised and slightly aggrieved at his own
      ignorance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Does that sort of thing interest you?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It used to.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There are one or two rather new things in the book: there have been some
      big strides lately in that particular line of research.&rdquo; I waited a moment
      for an answer that did not come; then I said: &ldquo;If you'd like to look the
      book through I'd be glad to leave it with you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to yield
      to a stealing tide of inertia; then, &ldquo;Thank you&mdash;I'll take it,&rdquo; he
      answered shortly.
    </p>
    <p>
      I hoped that this incident might set up some more direct communication
      between us. Frome was so simple and straightforward that I was sure his
      curiosity about the book was based on a genuine interest in its subject.
      Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
      more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I hoped
      that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least unseal
      his lips. But something in his past history, or in his present way of
      living, had apparently driven him too deeply into himself for any casual
      impulse to draw him back to his kind. At our next meeting he made no
      allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
      negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frome had been driving me over to the Flats for about a week when one
      morning I looked out of my window into a thick snow-fall. The height of
      the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of the
      church showed that the storm must have been going on all night, and that
      the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open. I thought it probable that
      my train would be delayed; but I had to be at the power-house for an hour
      or two that afternoon, and I decided, if Frome turned up, to push through
      to the Flats and wait there till my train came in. I don't know why I put
      it in the conditional, however, for I never doubted that Frome would
      appear. He was not the kind of man to be turned from his business by any
      commotion of the elements; and at the appointed hour his sleigh glided up
      through the snow like a stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was getting to know him too well to express either wonder or gratitude
      at his keeping his appointment; but I exclaimed in surprise as I saw him
      turn his horse in a direction opposite to that of the Corbury road.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The railroad's blocked by a freight-train that got stuck in a drift below
      the Flats,&rdquo; he explained, as we jogged off into the stinging whiteness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But look here&mdash;where are you taking me, then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Straight to the Junction, by the shortest way,&rdquo; he answered, pointing up
      School House Hill with his whip.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To the Junction&mdash;in this storm? Why, it's a good ten miles!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The bay'll do it if you give him time. You said you had some business
      there this afternoon. I'll see you get there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He said it so quietly that I could only answer: &ldquo;You're doing me the
      biggest kind of a favour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's all right,&rdquo; he rejoined.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane to
      the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the weight
      of the snow. I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew that the
      solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of the hill
      was that of Frome's saw-mill. It looked exanimate enough, with its idle
      wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white spume, and
      its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load. Frome did not even
      turn his head as we drove by, and still in silence we began to mount the
      next slope. About a mile farther, on a road I had never travelled, we came
      to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over a hillside among
      outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow like animals
      pushing out their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard lay a field or two,
      their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the fields, huddled against
      the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England
      farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's my place,&rdquo; said Frome, with a sideway jerk of his lame elbow; and
      in the distress and oppression of the scene I did not know what to answer.
      The snow had ceased, and a flash of watery sunlight exposed the house on
      the slope above us in all its plaintive ugliness. The black wraith of a
      deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin wooden walls, under
      their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with
      the ceasing of the snow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,' a
      while back,&rdquo; Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein the
      bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
    </p>
    <p>
      I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
      partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the &ldquo;L&rdquo;: that
      long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main house,
      and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the wood-shed
      and cow-barn. Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image it presents
      of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the chief sources
      of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because of the consolatory
      thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh climate to get to their
      morning's work without facing the weather, it is certain that the &ldquo;L&rdquo;
       rather than the house itself seems to be the centre, the actual
      hearth-stone of the New England farm. Perhaps this connection of ideas,
      which had often occurred to me in my rambles about Starkfield, caused me
      to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to see in the diminished
      dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We're kinder side-tracked here now,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;but there was
      considerable passing before the railroad was carried through to the
      Flats.&rdquo; He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if the
      mere sight of the house had let me too deeply into his confidence for any
      farther pretence of reserve, he went on slowly: &ldquo;I've always set down the
      worst of mother's trouble to that. When she got the rheumatism so bad she
      couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the road by the
      hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the Bettsbridge pike
      after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage round this way,
      she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate most days to see
      him. But after the trains begun running nobody ever come by here to speak
      of, and mother never could get it through her head what had happened, and
      it preyed on her right along till she died.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
      off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it,
      letting down between us the old veil of reticence. This time the wind did
      not cease with the return of the snow. Instead, it sprang up to a gale
      which now and then, from a tattered sky, flung pale sweeps of sunlight
      over a landscape chaotically tossed. But the bay was as good as Frome's
      word, and we pushed on to the Junction through the wild white scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the afternoon the storm held off, and the clearness in the west seemed
      to my inexperienced eye the pledge of a fair evening. I finished my
      business as quickly as possible, and we set out for Starkfield with a good
      chance of getting there for supper. But at sunset the clouds gathered
      again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and
      steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more
      confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It seemed to be a part
      of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us
      layer by layer.
    </p>
    <p>
      The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering medium,
      in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing instinct,
      finally ceased to serve us. Two or three times some ghostly landmark
      sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked back into
      the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse began to
      show signs of exhaustion. I felt myself to blame for having accepted
      Frome's offer, and after a short discussion I persuaded him to let me get
      out of the sleigh and walk along through the snow at the bay's side. In
      this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and at last reached a
      point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me formless night, said:
      &ldquo;That's my gate down yonder.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The last stretch had been the hardest part of the way. The bitter cold and
      the heavy going had nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I could feel
      the horse's side ticking like a clock under my hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here, Frome,&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;there's no earthly use in your going any
      farther&mdash;&rdquo; but he interrupted me: &ldquo;Nor you neither. There's been
      about enough of this for anybody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
      without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him to
      the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired horse.
      When this was done he unhooked the lantern from the sleigh, stepped out
      again into the night, and called to me over his shoulder: &ldquo;This way.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Far off above us a square of light trembled through the screen of snow.
      Staggering along in Frome's wake I floundered toward it, and in the
      darkness almost fell into one of the deep drifts against the front of the
      house. Frome scrambled up the slippery steps of the porch, digging a way
      through the snow with his heavily booted foot. Then he lifted his lantern,
      found the latch, and led the way into the house. I went after him into a
      low unlit passage, at the back of which a ladder-like staircase rose into
      obscurity. On our right a line of light marked the door of the room which
      had sent its ray across the night; and behind the door I heard a woman's
      voice droning querulously.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots, and
      set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of
      furniture in the hall. Then he opened the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; he said; and as he spoke the droning voice grew still...
    </p>
    <p>
      It was that night that I found the clue to Ethan Frome, and began to put
      together this vision of his story.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <h2>
      I
    </h2>
    <p>
      The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners.
      In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion
      flashed his cold fires. The moon had set, but the night was so transparent
      that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray against the snow,
      clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the basement windows of the
      church sent shafts of yellow light far across the endless undulations.
    </p>
    <p>
      Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past
      the bank and Michael Eady's new brick store and Lawyer Varnum's house with
      the two black Norway spruces at the gate. Opposite the Varnum gate, where
      the road fell away toward the Corbury valley, the church reared its slim
      white steeple and narrow peristyle. As the young man walked toward it the
      upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of the building, but
      from the lower openings, on the side where the ground sloped steeply down
      to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars, illuminating many fresh
      furrows in the track leading to the basement door, and showing, under an
      adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with heavily blanketed horses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The night was perfectly still, and the air so dry and pure that it gave
      little sensation of cold. The effect produced on Frome was rather of a
      complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than ether
      intervened between the white earth under his feet and the metallic dome
      overhead. &ldquo;It's like being in an exhausted receiver,&rdquo; he thought. Four or
      five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a technological college
      at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with a friendly professor of
      physics; and the images supplied by that experience still cropped up, at
      unexpected moments, through the totally different associations of thought
      in which he had since been living. His father's death, and the misfortunes
      following it, had put a premature end to Ethan's studies; but though they
      had not gone far enough to be of much practical use they had fed his fancy
      and made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of
      things.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he strode along through the snow the sense of such meanings glowed in
      his brain and mingled with the bodily flush produced by his sharp tramp.
      At the end of the village he paused before the darkened front of the
      church. He stood there a moment, breathing quickly, and looking up and
      down the street, in which not another figure moved. The pitch of the
      Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite
      coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner
      rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
      darkened the whiteness of the long declivity. The hush of midnight lay on
      the village, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church
      windows, from which strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands of
      yellow light.
    </p>
    <p>
      The young man, skirting the side of the building, went down the slope
      toward the basement door. To keep out of range of the revealing rays from
      within he made a circuit through the untrodden snow and gradually
      approached the farther angle of the basement wall. Thence, still hugging
      the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
      holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
      glimpse of the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      Seen thus, from the pure and frosty darkness in which he stood, it seemed
      to be seething in a mist of heat. The metal reflectors of the gas-jets
      sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and the iron
      flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though they were
      heaving with volcanic fires. The floor was thronged with girls and young
      men. Down the side wall facing the window stood a row of kitchen chairs
      from which the older women had just risen. By this time the music had
      stopped, and the musicians&mdash;a fiddler, and the young lady who played
      the harmonium on Sundays&mdash;were hastily refreshing themselves at one
      corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated pie-dishes and
      ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall. The guests were
      preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward the passage where
      coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a sprightly foot and a
      shock of black hair shot into the middle of the floor and clapped his
      hands. The signal took instant effect. The musicians hurried to their
      instruments, the dancers&mdash;some already half-muffled for departure&mdash;fell
      into line down each side of the room, the older spectators slipped back to
      their chairs, and the lively young man, after diving about here and there
      in the throng, drew forth a girl who had already wound a cherry-coloured
      &ldquo;fascinator&rdquo; about her head, and, leading her up to the end of the floor,
      whirled her down its length to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frome's heart was beating fast. He had been straining for a glimpse of the
      dark head under the cherry-coloured scarf and it vexed him that another
      eye should have been quicker than his. The leader of the reel, who looked
      as if he had Irish blood in his veins, danced well, and his partner caught
      his fire. As she passed down the line, her light figure swinging from hand
      to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf flew off her head
      and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each turn, caught sight
      of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair about her forehead,
      and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points in a maze of flying
      lines.
    </p>
    <p>
      The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep up
      with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing their mounts
      on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window that the
      reel would never end. Now and then he turned his eyes from the girl's face
      to that of her partner, which, in the exhilaration of the dance, had taken
      on a look of almost impudent ownership. Denis Eady was the son of Michael
      Eady, the ambitious Irish grocer, whose suppleness and effrontery had
      given Starkfield its first notion of &ldquo;smart&rdquo; business methods, and whose
      new brick store testified to the success of the attempt. His son seemed
      likely to follow in his steps, and was meanwhile applying the same arts to
      the conquest of the Starkfield maidenhood. Hitherto Ethan Frome had been
      content to think him a mean fellow; but now he positively invited a
      horse-whipping. It was strange that the girl did not seem aware of it:
      that she could lift her rapt face to her dancer's, and drop her hands into
      his, without appearing to feel the offence of his look and touch.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his wife's
      cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings when some chance of amusement
      drew her to the village. It was his wife who had suggested, when the girl
      came to live with them, that such opportunities should be put in her way.
      Mattie Silver came from Stamford, and when she entered the Fromes'
      household to act as her cousin Zeena's aid it was thought best, as she
      came without pay, not to let her feel too sharp a contrast between the
      life she had left and the isolation of a Starkfield farm. But for this&mdash;as
      Frome sardonically reflected&mdash;it would hardly have occurred to Zeena
      to take any thought for the girl's amusement.
    </p>
    <p>
      When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional
      evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the extra two miles
      to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long
      afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give
      all its nights to revelry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie Silver had lived under his roof for a year, and from early morning
      till they met at supper he had frequent chances of seeing her; but no
      moments in her company were comparable to those when, her arm in his, and
      her light step flying to keep time with his long stride, they walked back
      through the night to the farm. He had taken to the girl from the first
      day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and she had smiled
      and waved to him from the train, crying out, &ldquo;You must be Ethan!&rdquo; as she
      jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking over her slight
      person: &ldquo;She don't look much on housework, but she ain't a fretter,
      anyhow.&rdquo; But it was not only that the coming to his house of a bit of
      hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. The
      girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She
      had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell
      her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long
      reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was during their night walks back to the farm that he felt most
      intensely the sweetness of this communion. He had always been more
      sensitive than the people about him to the appeal of natural beauty. His
      unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his
      unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful
      persuasion. But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as a silent ache,
      veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it. He did not even know
      whether any one else in the world felt as he did, or whether he was the
      sole victim of this mournful privilege. Then he learned that one other
      spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his side,
      living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom he
      could say: &ldquo;That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
      Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones&mdash;like bees swarming&mdash;they're
      the Pleiades...&rdquo; or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
      thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
      ice age, and the long dim stretches of succeeding time. The fact that
      admiration for his learning mingled with Mattie's wonder at what he taught
      was not the least part of his pleasure. And there were other sensations,
      less definable but more exquisite, which drew them together with a shock
      of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter hills, the flight of
      cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the intensely blue shadows
      of hemlocks on sunlit snow. When she said to him once: &ldquo;It looks just as
      if it was painted!&rdquo; it seemed to Ethan that the art of definition could go
      no farther, and that words had at last been found to utter his secret
      soul....
    </p>
    <p>
      As he stood in the darkness outside the church these memories came back
      with the poignancy of vanished things. Watching Mattie whirl down the
      floor from hand to hand he wondered how he could ever have thought that
      his dull talk interested her. To him, who was never gay but in her
      presence, her gaiety seemed plain proof of indifference. The face she
      lifted to her dancers was the same which, when she saw him, always looked
      like a window that has caught the sunset. He even noticed two or three
      gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him: a way of
      throwing her head back when she was amused, as if to taste her laugh
      before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when
      anything charmed or moved her.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sight made him unhappy, and his unhappiness roused his latent fears.
      His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had
      grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of
      attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency. Zeena had always been
      what Starkfield called &ldquo;sickly,&rdquo; and Frome had to admit that, if she were
      as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm than the
      one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the farm. Mattie
      had no natural turn for housekeeping, and her training had done nothing to
      remedy the defect. She was quick to learn, but forgetful and dreamy, and
      not disposed to take the matter seriously. Ethan had an idea that if she
      were to marry a man she was fond of the dormant instinct would wake, and
      her pies and biscuits become the pride of the county; but domesticity in
      the abstract did not interest her. At first she was so awkward that he
      could not help laughing at her; but she laughed with him and that made
      them better friends. He did his best to supplement her unskilled efforts,
      getting up earlier than usual to light the kitchen fire, carrying in the
      wood overnight, and neglecting the mill for the farm that he might help
      her about the house during the day. He even crept down on Saturday nights
      to scrub the kitchen floor after the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one
      day, had surprised him at the churn and had turned away silently, with one
      of her queer looks.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of late there had been other signs of her disfavour, as intangible but
      more disquieting. One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark, his
      candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had heard
      her speak from the bed behind him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The doctor don't want I should be left without anybody to do for me,&rdquo; she
      said in her flat whine.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had startled
      him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after long
      intervals of secretive silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under the
      dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from the
      whiteness of the pillow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nobody to do for you?&rdquo; he repeated.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you say you can't afford a hired girl when Mattie goes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
      reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above the
      wash-stand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why on earth should Mattie go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, when she gets married, I mean,&rdquo; his wife's drawl came from behind
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, she'd never leave us as long as you needed her,&rdquo; he returned,
      scraping hard at his chin.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wouldn't ever have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl like
      Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady,&rdquo; Zeena answered in a tone
      of plaintive self-effacement.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan, glaring at his face in the glass, threw his head back to draw the
      razor from ear to chin. His hand was steady, but the attitude was an
      excuse for not making an immediate reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the doctor don't want I should be left without anybody,&rdquo; Zeena
      continued. &ldquo;He wanted I should speak to you about a girl he's heard about,
      that might come&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan laid down the razor and straightened himself with a laugh.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Denis Eady! If that's all, I guess there's no such hurry to look round
      for a girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'd like to talk to you about it,&rdquo; said Zeena obstinately.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was getting into his clothes in fumbling haste. &ldquo;All right. But I
      haven't got the time now; I'm late as it is,&rdquo; he returned, holding his old
      silver turnip-watch to the candle.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in silence
      while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked his arms into
      his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, suddenly and
      incisively: &ldquo;I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That thrust had frightened him more than any vague insinuations about
      Denis Eady. It was a fact that since Mattie Silver's coming he had taken
      to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be asleep when he left
      her side in the winter darkness, and he had stupidly assumed that she
      would not notice any change in his appearance. Once or twice in the past
      he had been faintly disquieted by Zenobia's way of letting things happen
      without seeming to remark them, and then, weeks afterward, in a casual
      phrase, revealing that she had all along taken her notes and drawn her
      inferences. Of late, however, there had been no room in his thoughts for
      such vague apprehensions. Zeena herself, from an oppressive reality, had
      faded into an insubstantial shade. All his life was lived in the sight and
      sound of Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive of its being
      otherwise. But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw Mattie
      spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded hints and
      menaces wove their cloud about his brain....
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      II
    </h2>
    <p>
      As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
      projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely muffled
      groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a face flushed
      with food and dancing. The villagers, being afoot, were the first to climb
      the slope to the main street, while the country neighbours packed
      themselves more slowly into the sleighs under the shed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ain't you riding, Mattie?&rdquo; a woman's voice called back from the throng
      about the shed, and Ethan's heart gave a jump. From where he stood he
      could not see the persons coming out of the hall till they had advanced a
      few steps beyond the wooden sides of the storm-door; but through its
      cracks he heard a clear voice answer: &ldquo;Mercy no! Not on such a night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She was there, then, close to him, only a thin board between. In another
      moment she would step forth into the night, and his eyes, accustomed to
      the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as though she stood in
      daylight. A wave of shyness pulled him back into the dark angle of the
      wall, and he stood there in silence instead of making his presence known
      to her. It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from the
      first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing him
      by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and freedom; but
      now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days, when he had tried
      to &ldquo;jolly&rdquo; the Worcester girls at a picnic.
    </p>
    <p>
      He hung back, and she came out alone and paused within a few yards of him.
      She was almost the last to leave the hall, and she stood looking
      uncertainly about her as if wondering why he did not show himself. Then a
      man's figure approached, coming so close to her that under their formless
      wrappings they seemed merged in one dim outline.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentleman friend gone back on you? Say, Matt, that's tough! No, I
      wouldn't be mean enough to tell the other girls. I ain't as low-down as
      that.&rdquo; (How Frome hated his cheap banter!) &ldquo;But look at here, ain't it
      lucky I got the old man's cutter down there waiting for us?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Frome heard the girl's voice, gaily incredulous: &ldquo;What on earth's your
      father's cutter doin' down there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, waiting for me to take a ride. I got the roan colt too. I kinder
      knew I'd want to take a ride to-night,&rdquo; Eady, in his triumph, tried to put
      a sentimental note into his bragging voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      The girl seemed to waver, and Frome saw her twirl the end of her scarf
      irresolutely about her fingers. Not for the world would he have made a
      sign to her, though it seemed to him that his life hung on her next
      gesture.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hold on a minute while I unhitch the colt,&rdquo; Denis called to her,
      springing toward the shed.
    </p>
    <p>
      She stood perfectly still, looking after him, in an attitude of tranquil
      expectancy torturing to the hidden watcher. Frome noticed that she no
      longer turned her head from side to side, as though peering through the
      night for another figure. She let Denis Eady lead out the horse, climb
      into the cutter and fling back the bearskin to make room for her at his
      side; then, with a swift motion of flight, she turned about and darted up
      the slope toward the front of the church.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye! Hope you'll have a lovely ride!&rdquo; she called back to him over
      her shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      Denis laughed, and gave the horse a cut that brought him quickly abreast
      of her retreating figure.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come along! Get in quick! It's as slippery as thunder on this turn,&rdquo; he
      cried, leaning over to reach out a hand to her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She laughed back at him: &ldquo;Good-night! I'm not getting in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could only
      follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they continued to
      move along the crest of the slope above him. He saw Eady, after a moment,
      jump from the cutter and go toward the girl with the reins over one arm.
      The other he tried to slip through hers; but she eluded him nimbly, and
      Frome's heart, which had swung out over a black void, trembled back to
      safety. A moment later he heard the jingle of departing sleigh bells and
      discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty expanse of snow before
      the church.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the black shade of the Varnum spruces he caught up with her and she
      turned with a quick &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Think I'd forgotten you, Matt?&rdquo; he asked with sheepish glee.
    </p>
    <p>
      She answered seriously: &ldquo;I thought maybe you couldn't come back for me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Couldn't? What on earth could stop me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I knew Zeena wasn't feeling any too good to-day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, she's in bed long ago.&rdquo; He paused, a question struggling in him.
      &ldquo;Then you meant to walk home all alone?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I ain't afraid!&rdquo; she laughed.
    </p>
    <p>
      They stood together in the gloom of the spruces, an empty world glimmering
      about them wide and grey under the stars. He brought his question out.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you thought I hadn't come, why didn't you ride back with Denis Eady?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, where were you? How did you know? I never saw you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her wonder and his laughter ran together like spring rills in a thaw.
      Ethan had the sense of having done something arch and ingenious. To
      prolong the effect he groped for a dazzling phrase, and brought out, in a
      growl of rapture: &ldquo;Come along.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He slipped an arm through hers, as Eady had done, and fancied it was
      faintly pressed against her side, but neither of them moved. It was so
      dark under the spruces that he could barely see the shape of her head
      beside his shoulder. He longed to stoop his cheek and rub it against her
      scarf. He would have liked to stand there with her all night in the
      blackness. She moved forward a step or two and then paused again above the
      dip of the Corbury road. Its icy slope, scored by innumerable runners,
      looked like a mirror scratched by travellers at an inn.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There was a whole lot of them coasting before the moon set,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Would you like to come in and coast with them some night?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, would you, Ethan? It would be lovely!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We'll come to-morrow if there's a moon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She lingered, pressing closer to his side. &ldquo;Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum came
      just as near running into the big elm at the bottom. We were all sure they
      were killed.&rdquo; Her shiver ran down his arm. &ldquo;Wouldn't it have been too
      awful? They're so happy!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ned ain't much at steering. I guess I can take you down all right!&rdquo;
       he said disdainfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was aware that he was &ldquo;talking big,&rdquo; like Denis Eady; but his reaction
      of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflection with which she had said of
      the engaged couple &ldquo;They're so happy!&rdquo; made the words sound as if she had
      been thinking of herself and him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The elm is dangerous, though. It ought to be cut down,&rdquo; she insisted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Would you be afraid of it, with me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I told you I ain't the kind to be afraid&rdquo; she tossed back, almost
      indifferently; and suddenly she began to walk on with a rapid step.
    </p>
    <p>
      These alterations of mood were the despair and joy of Ethan Frome. The
      motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in the
      branches. The fact that he had no right to show his feelings, and thus
      provoke the expression of hers, made him attach a fantastic importance to
      every change in her look and tone. Now he thought she understood him, and
      feared; now he was sure she did not, and despaired. To-night the pressure
      of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward despair, and her
      indifference was the more chilling after the flush of joy into which she
      had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady. He mounted School House Hill at
      her side and walked on in silence till they reached the lane leading to
      the saw-mill; then the need of some definite assurance grew too strong for
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'd have found me right off if you hadn't gone back to have that last
      reel with Denis,&rdquo; he brought out awkwardly. He could not pronounce the
      name without a stiffening of the muscles of his throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Ethan, how could I tell you were there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose what folks say is true,&rdquo; he jerked out at her, instead of
      answering.
    </p>
    <p>
      She stopped short, and he felt, in the darkness, that her face was lifted
      quickly to his. &ldquo;Why, what do folks say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's natural enough you should be leaving us&rdquo; he floundered on, following
      his thought.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is that what they say?&rdquo; she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden drop
      of her sweet treble: &ldquo;You mean that Zeena&mdash;ain't suited with me any
      more?&rdquo; she faltered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Their arms had slipped apart and they stood motionless, each seeking to
      distinguish the other's face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know I ain't anything like as smart as I ought to be,&rdquo; she went on,
      while he vainly struggled for expression. &ldquo;There's lots of things a hired
      girl could do that come awkward to me still&mdash;and I haven't got much
      strength in my arms. But if she'd only tell me I'd try. You know she
      hardly ever says anything, and sometimes I can see she ain't suited, and
      yet I don't know why.&rdquo; She turned on him with a sudden flash of
      indignation. &ldquo;You'd ought to tell me, Ethan Frome&mdash;you'd ought to!
      Unless you want me to go too&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Unless he wanted her to go too! The cry was balm to his raw wound. The
      iron heavens seemed to melt and rain down sweetness. Again he struggled
      for the all-expressive word, and again, his arm in hers, found only a deep
      &ldquo;Come along.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They walked on in silence through the blackness of the hemlock-shaded
      lane, where Ethan's sawmill gloomed through the night, and out again into
      the comparative clearness of the fields. On the farther side of the
      hemlock belt the open country rolled away before them grey and lonely
      under the stars. Sometimes their way led them under the shade of an
      overhanging bank or through the thin obscurity of a clump of leafless
      trees. Here and there a farmhouse stood far back among the fields, mute
      and cold as a grave-stone. The night was so still that they heard the
      frozen snow crackle under their feet. The crash of a loaded branch falling
      far off in the woods reverberated like a musket-shot, and once a fox
      barked, and Mattie shrank closer to Ethan, and quickened her steps.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length they sighted the group of larches at Ethan's gate, and as they
      drew near it the sense that the walk was over brought back his words.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then you don't want to leave us, Matt?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He had to stoop his head to catch her stifled whisper: &ldquo;Where'd I go, if I
      did?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The answer sent a pang through him but the tone suffused him with joy. He
      forgot what else he had meant to say and pressed her against him so
      closely that he seemed to feel her warmth in his veins.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You ain't crying are you, Matt?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, of course I'm not,&rdquo; she quavered.
    </p>
    <p>
      They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where,
      enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy angles
      through the snow. Ethan looked at them curiously. For years that quiet
      company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for change and freedom.
      &ldquo;We never got away&mdash;how should you?&rdquo; seemed to be written on every
      headstone; and whenever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a
      shiver: &ldquo;I shall just go on living here till I join them.&rdquo; But now all
      desire for change had vanished, and the sight of the little enclosure gave
      him a warm sense of continuance and stability.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess we'll never let you go, Matt,&rdquo; he whispered, as though even the
      dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by the
      graves, he thought: &ldquo;We'll always go on living here together, and some day
      she'll lie there beside me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He let the vision possess him as they climbed the hill to the house. He
      was never so happy with her as when he abandoned himself to these dreams.
      Half-way up the slope Mattie stumbled against some unseen obstruction and
      clutched his sleeve to steady herself. The wave of warmth that went
      through him was like the prolongation of his vision. For the first time he
      stole his arm about her, and she did not resist. They walked on as if they
      were floating on a summer stream.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena always went to bed as soon as she had had her supper, and the
      shutterless windows of the house were dark. A dead cucumber-vine dangled
      from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
      the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: &ldquo;If it was there for Zeena&mdash;&rdquo;
       Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
      her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
    </p>
    <p>
      They walked around to the back of the house, between the rigid gooseberry
      bushes. It was Zeena's habit, when they came back late from the village,
      to leave the key of the kitchen door under the mat. Ethan stood before the
      door, his head heavy with dreams, his arm still about Mattie. &ldquo;Matt&mdash;&rdquo;
       he began, not knowing what he meant to say.
    </p>
    <p>
      She slipped out of his hold without speaking, and he stooped down and felt
      for the key.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's not there!&rdquo; he said, straightening himself with a start.
    </p>
    <p>
      They strained their eyes at each other through the icy darkness. Such a
      thing had never happened before.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Maybe she's forgotten it,&rdquo; Mattie said in a tremulous whisper; but both
      of them knew that it was not like Zeena to forget.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It might have fallen off into the snow,&rdquo; Mattie continued, after a pause
      during which they had stood intently listening.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It must have been pushed off, then,&rdquo; he rejoined in the same tone.
      Another wild thought tore through him. What if tramps had been there&mdash;what
      if...
    </p>
    <p>
      Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then he
      felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light slowly
      over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was still kneeling when his eyes, on a level with the lower panel of
      the door, caught a faint ray beneath it. Who could be stirring in that
      silent house? He heard a step on the stairs, and again for an instant the
      thought of tramps tore through him. Then the door opened and he saw his
      wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular,
      one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other
      held a lamp. The light, on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness
      her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the
      quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her
      high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins. To Ethan, still in the
      rosy haze of his hour with Mattie, the sight came with the intense
      precision of the last dream before waking. He felt as if he had never
      before known what his wife looked like.
    </p>
    <p>
      She drew aside without speaking, and Mattie and Ethan passed into the
      kitchen, which had the deadly chill of a vault after the dry cold of the
      night.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Guess you forgot about us, Zeena,&rdquo; Ethan joked, stamping the snow from
      his boots.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. I just felt so mean I couldn't sleep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mattie came forward, unwinding her wraps, the colour of the cherry scarf
      in her fresh lips and cheeks. &ldquo;I'm so sorry, Zeena! Isn't there anything I
      can do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No; there's nothing.&rdquo; Zeena turned away from her. &ldquo;You might 'a' shook
      off that snow outside,&rdquo; she said to her husband.
    </p>
    <p>
      She walked out of the kitchen ahead of them and pausing in the hall raised
      the lamp at arm's-length, as if to light them up the stairs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan paused also, affecting to fumble for the peg on which he hung his
      coat and cap. The doors of the two bedrooms faced each other across the
      narrow upper landing, and to-night it was peculiarly repugnant to him that
      Mattie should see him follow Zeena.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess I won't come up yet awhile,&rdquo; he said, turning as if to go back to
      the kitchen.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena stopped short and looked at him. &ldquo;For the land's sake&mdash;what you
      going to do down here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've got the mill accounts to go over.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She continued to stare at him, the flame of the unshaded lamp bringing out
      with microscopic cruelty the fretful lines of her face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;At this time o' night? You'll ketch your death. The fire's out long ago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Without answering he moved away toward the kitchen. As he did so his
      glance crossed Mattie's and he fancied that a fugitive warning gleamed
      through her lashes. The next moment they sank to her flushed cheeks and
      she began to mount the stairs ahead of Zeena.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's so. It is powerful cold down here,&rdquo; Ethan assented; and with
      lowered head he went up in his wife's wake, and followed her across the
      threshold of their room.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      III
    </h2>
    <p>
      There was some hauling to be done at the lower end of the wood-lot, and
      Ethan was out early the next day.
    </p>
    <p>
      The winter morning was as clear as crystal. The sunrise burned red in a
      pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
      beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
      like smoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging to
      their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of mountain
      air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking. He and Zeena had not exchanged
      a word after the door of their room had closed on them. She had measured
      out some drops from a medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed and, after
      swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow flannel, had
      lain down with her face turned away. Ethan undressed hurriedly and blew
      out the light so that he should not see her when he took his place at her
      side. As he lay there he could hear Mattie moving about in her room, and
      her candle, sending its small ray across the landing, drew a scarcely
      perceptible line of light under his door. He kept his eyes fixed on the
      light till it vanished. Then the room grew perfectly black, and not a
      sound was audible but Zeena's asthmatic breathing. Ethan felt confusedly
      that there were many things he ought to think about, but through his
      tingling veins and tired brain only one sensation throbbed: the warmth of
      Mattie's shoulder against his. Why had he not kissed her when he held her
      there? A few hours earlier he would not have asked himself the question.
      Even a few minutes earlier, when they had stood alone outside the house,
      he would not have dared to think of kissing her. But since he had seen her
      lips in the lamplight he felt that they were his.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, in the bright morning air, her face was still before him. It was part
      of the sun's red and of the pure glitter on the snow. How the girl had
      changed since she had come to Starkfield! He remembered what a colourless
      slip of a thing she had looked the day he had met her at the station. And
      all the first winter, how she had shivered with cold when the northerly
      gales shook the thin clapboards and the snow beat like hail against the
      loose-hung windows!
    </p>
    <p>
      He had been afraid that she would hate the hard life, the cold and
      loneliness; but not a sign of discontent escaped her. Zeena took the view
      that Mattie was bound to make the best of Starkfield since she hadn't any
      other place to go to; but this did not strike Ethan as conclusive. Zeena,
      at any rate, did not apply the principle in her own case.
    </p>
    <p>
      He felt all the more sorry for the girl because misfortune had, in a
      sense, indentured her to them. Mattie Silver was the daughter of a cousin
      of Zenobia Frome's, who had inflamed his clan with mingled sentiments of
      envy and admiration by descending from the hills to Connecticut, where he
      had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to her father's thriving &ldquo;drug&rdquo;
       business. Unhappily Orin Silver, a man of far-reaching aims, had died too
      soon to prove that the end justifies the means. His accounts revealed
      merely what the means had been; and these were such that it was fortunate
      for his wife and daughter that his books were examined only after his
      impressive funeral. His wife died of the disclosure, and Mattie, at
      twenty, was left alone to make her way on the fifty dollars obtained from
      the sale of her piano. For this purpose her equipment, though varied, was
      inadequate. She could trim a hat, make molasses candy, recite &ldquo;Curfew
      shall not ring to-night,&rdquo; and play &ldquo;The Lost Chord&rdquo; and a pot-pourri from
      &ldquo;Carmen.&rdquo; When she tried to extend the field of her activities in the
      direction of stenography and book-keeping her health broke down, and six
      months on her feet behind the counter of a department store did not tend
      to restore it. Her nearest relations had been induced to place their
      savings in her father's hands, and though, after his death, they
      ungrudgingly acquitted themselves of the Christian duty of returning good
      for evil by giving his daughter all the advice at their disposal, they
      could hardly be expected to supplement it by material aid. But when
      Zenobia's doctor recommended her looking about for some one to help her
      with the house-work the clan instantly saw the chance of exacting a
      compensation from Mattie. Zenobia, though doubtful of the girl's
      efficiency, was tempted by the freedom to find fault without much risk of
      losing her; and so Mattie came to Starkfield.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zenobia's fault-finding was of the silent kind, but not the less
      penetrating for that. During the first months Ethan alternately burned
      with the desire to see Mattie defy her and trembled with fear of the
      result. Then the situation grew less strained. The pure air, and the long
      summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie, and
      Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew less
      watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on under the
      burden of his barren farm and failing saw-mill, could at least imagine
      that peace reigned in his house.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was really, even now, no tangible evidence to the contrary; but
      since the previous night a vague dread had hung on his sky-line. It was
      formed of Zeena's obstinate silence, of Mattie's sudden look of warning,
      of the memory of just such fleeting imperceptible signs as those which
      told him, on certain stainless mornings, that before night there would be
      rain.
    </p>
    <p>
      His dread was so strong that, man-like, he sought to postpone certainty.
      The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
      delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier for
      Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on foot, and
      drive the load down to the village himself. He had scrambled up on the
      logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy grays, when,
      coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a vision of the
      warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If there's going to be any trouble I want to be there,&rdquo; was his vague
      reflection, as he threw to Jotham the unexpected order to unhitch the team
      and lead them back to the barn.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields, and when the two men
      entered the kitchen Mattie was lifting the coffee from the stove and Zeena
      was already at the table. Her husband stopped short at sight of her.
      Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her best
      dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which still
      preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
      perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he had
      to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium. On the floor
      beside her stood his old valise and a bandbox wrapped in newspapers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, where are you going, Zeena?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge to
      spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor,&rdquo; she
      answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
      the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
      over the blankets.
    </p>
    <p>
      In spite of her sedentary habits such abrupt decisions were not without
      precedent in Zeena's history. Twice or thrice before she had suddenly
      packed Ethan's valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or even Springfield,
      to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her husband had grown to dread
      these expeditions because of their cost. Zeena always came back laden with
      expensive remedies, and her last visit to Springfield had been
      commemorated by her paying twenty dollars for an electric battery of which
      she had never been able to learn the use. But for the moment his sense of
      relief was so great as to preclude all other feelings. He had now no doubt
      that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying, the night before, that she had
      sat up because she felt &ldquo;too mean&rdquo; to sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek
      medical advice showed that, as usual, she was wholly absorbed in her
      health.
    </p>
    <p>
      As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively; &ldquo;If you're too busy
      with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me over with
      the sorrel in time to ketch the train at the Flats.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her husband hardly heard what she was saying. During the winter months
      there was no stage between Starkfield and Bettsbridge, and the trains
      which stopped at Corbury Flats were slow and infrequent. A rapid
      calculation showed Ethan that Zeena could not be back at the farm before
      the following evening....
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I'd supposed you'd 'a' made any objection to Jotham Powell's driving
      me over&mdash;&rdquo; she began again, as though his silence had implied
      refusal. On the brink of departure she was always seized with a flux of
      words. &ldquo;All I know is,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I can't go on the way I am much
      longer. The pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or I'd 'a' walked
      in to Starkfield on my own feet, sooner'n put you out, and asked Michael
      Eady to let me ride over on his wagon to the Flats, when he sends to meet
      the train that brings his groceries. I'd 'a' had two hours to wait in the
      station, but I'd sooner 'a' done it, even with this cold, than to have you
      say&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course Jotham'll drive you over,&rdquo; Ethan roused himself to answer. He
      became suddenly conscious that he was looking at Mattie while Zeena talked
      to him, and with an effort he turned his eyes to his wife. She sat
      opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of snow
      made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened the
      three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous lines
      from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth. Though she was but seven
      years her husband's senior, and he was only twenty-eight, she was already
      an old woman.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was only
      one thought in his mind: the fact that, for the first time since Mattie
      had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a night. He wondered
      if the girl were thinking of it too....
    </p>
    <p>
      He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive her to
      the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to Starkfield, and at
      first he could not think of a pretext for not doing so; then he said: &ldquo;I'd
      take you over myself, only I've got to collect the cash for the lumber.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because they
      were untrue&mdash;there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment
      from Hale&mdash;but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of
      letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic
      excursions. At the moment, however, his one desire was to avoid the long
      drive with her behind the ancient sorrel who never went out of a walk.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena made no reply: she did not seem to hear what he had said. She had
      already pushed her plate aside, and was measuring out a draught from a
      large bottle at her elbow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It ain't done me a speck of good, but I guess I might as well use it up,&rdquo;
       she remarked; adding, as she pushed the empty bottle toward Mattie: &ldquo;If
      you can get the taste out it'll do for pickles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      As soon as his wife had driven off Ethan took his coat and cap from the
      peg. Mattie was washing up the dishes, humming one of the dance tunes of
      the night before. He said &ldquo;So long, Matt,&rdquo; and she answered gaily &ldquo;So
      long, Ethan&rdquo;; and that was all.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was warm and bright in the kitchen. The sun slanted through the south
      window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on
      the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted them
      in the summer to &ldquo;make a garden&rdquo; for Mattie. He would have liked to linger
      on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but he wanted
      still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm before night.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the way down to the village he continued to think of his return to
      Mattie. The kitchen was a poor place, not &ldquo;spruce&rdquo; and shining as his
      mother had kept it in his boyhood; but it was surprising what a homelike
      look the mere fact of Zeena's absence gave it. And he pictured what it
      would be like that evening, when he and Mattie were there after supper.
      For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would
      sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in his
      stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that funny
      way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never heard her
      before.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears of
      &ldquo;trouble&rdquo; with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush, and
      he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he drove through
      the snowy fields. There was in him a slumbering spark of sociability which
      the long Starkfield winters had not yet extinguished. By nature grave and
      inarticulate, he admired recklessness and gaiety in others and was warmed
      to the marrow by friendly human intercourse. At Worcester, though he had
      the name of keeping to himself and not being much of a hand at a good
      time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped on the back and hailed as
      &ldquo;Old Ethe&rdquo; or &ldquo;Old Stiff&rdquo;; and the cessation of such familiarities had
      increased the chill of his return to Starkfield.
    </p>
    <p>
      There the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone, after
      his father's accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, he had had no
      time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when his mother fell ill
      the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that of the fields.
      His mother had been a talker in her day, but after her &ldquo;trouble&rdquo; the sound
      of her voice was seldom heard, though she had not lost the power of
      speech. Sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when in desperation her
      son asked her why she didn't &ldquo;say something,&rdquo; she would lift a finger and
      answer: &ldquo;Because I'm listening&rdquo;; and on stormy nights, when the loud wind
      was about the house, she would complain, if he spoke to her: &ldquo;They're
      talking so out there that I can't hear you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin Zenobia
      Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her, that human
      speech was heard again in the house. After the mortal silence of his long
      imprisonment Zeena's volubility was music in his ears. He felt that he
      might have &ldquo;gone like his mother&rdquo; if the sound of a new voice had not come
      to steady him. Zeena seemed to understand his case at a glance. She
      laughed at him for not knowing the simplest sick-bed duties and told him
      to &ldquo;go right along out&rdquo; and leave her to see to things. The mere fact of
      obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about his business again and
      talk with other men, restored his shaken balance and magnified his sense
      of what he owed her. Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to
      possess by instinct all the household wisdom that his long apprenticeship
      had not instilled in him. When the end came it was she who had to tell him
      to hitch up and go for the undertaker, and she thought it &ldquo;funny&rdquo; that he
      had not settled beforehand who was to have his mother's clothes and the
      sewing-machine. After the funeral, when he saw her preparing to go away,
      he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm;
      and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with
      him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his
      mother had died in spring instead of winter...
    </p>
    <p>
      When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten out
      the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they would sell
      the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town. Ethan's love of
      nature did not take the form of a taste for agriculture. He had always
      wanted to be an engineer, and to live in towns, where there were lectures
      and big libraries and &ldquo;fellows doing things.&rdquo; A slight engineering job in
      Florida, put in his way during his period of study at Worcester, increased
      his faith in his ability as well as his eagerness to see the world; and he
      felt sure that, with a &ldquo;smart&rdquo; wife like Zeena, it would not be long
      before he had made himself a place in it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway than
      Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that life on an
      isolated farm was not what she had expected when she married. But
      purchasers were slow in coming, and while he waited for them Ethan learned
      the impossibility of transplanting her. She chose to look down on
      Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place which looked down on
      her. Even Bettsbridge or Shadd's Falls would not have been sufficiently
      aware of her, and in the greater cities which attracted Ethan she would
      have suffered a complete loss of identity. And within a year of their
      marriage she developed the &ldquo;sickliness&rdquo; which had since made her notable
      even in a community rich in pathological instances. When she came to take
      care of his mother she had seemed to Ethan like the very genius of health,
      but he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had been acquired by the
      absorbed observation of her own symptoms.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then she too fell silent. Perhaps it was the inevitable effect of life on
      the farm, or perhaps, as she sometimes said, it was because Ethan &ldquo;never
      listened.&rdquo; The charge was not wholly unfounded. When she spoke it was only
      to complain, and to complain of things not in his power to remedy; and to
      check a tendency to impatient retort he had first formed the habit of not
      answering her, and finally of thinking of other things while she talked.
      Of late, however, since he had reasons for observing her more closely, her
      silence had begun to trouble him. He recalled his mother's growing
      taciturnity, and wondered if Zeena were also turning &ldquo;queer.&rdquo; Women did,
      he knew. Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the pathological chart of the
      whole region, had cited many cases of the kind while she was nursing his
      mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely farm-houses in the
      neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and of others where sudden
      tragedy had come of their presence. At times, looking at Zeena's shut
      face, he felt the chill of such forebodings. At other times her silence
      seemed deliberately assumed to conceal far-reaching intentions, mysterious
      conclusions drawn from suspicions and resentments impossible to guess.
      That supposition was even more disturbing than the other; and it was the
      one which had come to him the night before, when he had seen her standing
      in the kitchen door.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now her departure for Bettsbridge had once more eased his mind, and all
      his thoughts were on the prospect of his evening with Mattie. Only one
      thing weighed on him, and that was his having told Zeena that he was to
      receive cash for the lumber. He foresaw so clearly the consequences of
      this imprudence that with considerable reluctance he decided to ask Andrew
      Hale for a small advance on his load.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Ethan drove into Hale's yard the builder was just getting out of his
      sleigh.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Ethe!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This comes handy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
      double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
      was always fastened by a small diamond stud. This display of opulence was
      misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known that his
      easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently kept him
      what Starkfield called &ldquo;behind.&rdquo; He was an old friend of Ethan's family,
      and his house one of the few to which Zeena occasionally went, drawn there
      by the fact that Mrs. Hale, in her youth, had done more &ldquo;doctoring&rdquo; than
      any other woman in Starkfield, and was still a recognised authority on
      symptoms and treatment.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hale went up to the grays and patted their sweating flanks.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you keep them two as if they was pets.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan set about unloading the logs and when he had finished his job he
      pushed open the glazed door of the shed which the builder used as his
      office. Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against a
      battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
      genial and untidy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sit right down and thaw out,&rdquo; he greeted Ethan.
    </p>
    <p>
      The latter did not know how to begin, but at length he managed to bring
      out his request for an advance of fifty dollars. The blood rushed to his
      thin skin under the sting of Hale's astonishment. It was the builder's
      custom to pay at the end of three months, and there was no precedent
      between the two men for a cash settlement.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have made
      shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinctive prudence, kept him from
      resorting to this argument. After his father's death it had taken time to
      get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew Hale, or any one else
      in Starkfield, to think he was going under again. Besides, he hated lying;
      if he wanted the money he wanted it, and it was nobody's business to ask
      why. He therefore made his demand with the awkwardness of a proud man who
      will not admit to himself that he is stooping; and he was not much
      surprised at Hale's refusal.
    </p>
    <p>
      The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the
      matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to know
      if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a &ldquo;cupolo&rdquo; to his house;
      offering, in the latter case, to give his services free of cost.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan's arts were soon exhausted, and after an embarrassed pause he wished
      Hale good day and opened the door of the office. As he passed out the
      builder suddenly called after him: &ldquo;See here&mdash;you ain't in a tight
      place, are you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not a bit,&rdquo; Ethan's pride retorted before his reason had time to
      intervene.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's good! Because I am, a shade. Fact is, I was going to ask you
      to give me a little extra time on that payment. Business is pretty slack,
      to begin with, and then I'm fixing up a little house for Ned and Ruth when
      they're married. I'm glad to do it for 'em, but it costs.&rdquo; His look
      appealed to Ethan for sympathy. &ldquo;The young people like things nice. You
      know how it is yourself: it's not so long ago since you fixed up your own
      place for Zeena.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan left the grays in Hale's stable and went about some other business
      in the village. As he walked away the builder's last phrase lingered in
      his ears, and he reflected grimly that his seven years with Zeena seemed
      to Starkfield &ldquo;not so long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The afternoon was drawing to an end, and here and there a lighted pane
      spangled the cold gray dusk and made the snow look whiter. The bitter
      weather had driven every one indoors and Ethan had the long rural street
      to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk play of sleigh-bells and a cutter
      passed him, drawn by a free-going horse. Ethan recognised Michael Eady's
      roan colt, and young Denis Eady, in a handsome new fur cap, leaned forward
      and waved a greeting. &ldquo;Hello, Ethe!&rdquo; he shouted and spun on.
    </p>
    <p>
      The cutter was going in the direction of the Frome farm, and Ethan's heart
      contracted as he listened to the dwindling bells. What more likely than
      that Denis Eady had heard of Zeena's departure for Bettsbridge, and was
      profiting by the opportunity to spend an hour with Mattie? Ethan was
      ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his breast. It seemed unworthy of the
      girl that his thoughts of her should be so violent.
    </p>
    <p>
      He walked on to the church corner and entered the shade of the Varnum
      spruces, where he had stood with her the night before. As he passed into
      their gloom he saw an indistinct outline just ahead of him. At his
      approach it melted for an instant into two separate shapes and then
      conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a half-laughing &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; provoked
      by the discovery of his presence. Again the outline hastily disunited and
      the Varnum gate slammed on one half while the other hurried on ahead of
      him. Ethan smiled at the discomfiture he had caused. What did it matter to
      Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum if they were caught kissing each other? Everybody
      in Starkfield knew they were engaged. It pleased Ethan to have surprised a
      pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had stood with such a
      thirst for each other in their hearts; but he felt a pang at the thought
      that these two need not hide their happiness.
    </p>
    <p>
      He fetched the grays from Hale's stable and started on his long climb back
      to the farm. The cold was less sharp than earlier in the day and a thick
      fleecy sky threatened snow for the morrow. Here and there a star pricked
      through, showing behind it a deep well of blue. In an hour or two the moon
      would push over the ridge behind the farm, burn a gold-edged rent in the
      clouds, and then be swallowed by them. A mournful peace hung on the
      fields, as though they felt the relaxing grasp of the cold and stretched
      themselves in their long winter sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan's ears were alert for the jingle of sleigh-bells, but not a sound
      broke the silence of the lonely road. As he drew near the farm he saw,
      through the thin screen of larches at the gate, a light twinkling in the
      house above him. &ldquo;She's up in her room,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;fixing
      herself up for supper&rdquo;; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
      Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with
      smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
    </p>
    <p>
      He passed by the graves on the knoll and turned his head to glance at one
      of the older headstones, which had interested him deeply as a boy because
      it bore his name.
    </p>
    <p>
      SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ETHAN FROME AND ENDURANCE HIS WIFE, WHO DWELLED
      TOGETHER IN PEACE FOR FIFTY YEARS.
    </p>
    <p>
      He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live
      together; but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash. Then,
      with a sudden dart of irony, he wondered if, when their turn came, the
      same epitaph would be written over him and Zeena.
    </p>
    <p>
      He opened the barn-door and craned his head into the obscurity,
      half-fearing to discover Denis Eady's roan colt in the stall beside the
      sorrel. But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
      toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
      grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers. His was not a
      tuneful throat&mdash;but harsh melodies burst from it as he locked the
      barn and sprang up the hill to the house. He reached the kitchen-porch and
      turned the door-handle; but the door did not yield to his touch.
    </p>
    <p>
      Startled at finding it locked he rattled the handle violently; then he
      reflected that Mattie was alone and that it was natural she should
      barricade herself at nightfall. He stood in the darkness expecting to hear
      her step. It did not come, and after vainly straining his ears he called
      out in a voice that shook with joy: &ldquo;Hello, Matt!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Silence answered; but in a minute or two he caught a sound on the stairs
      and saw a line of light about the door-frame, as he had seen it the night
      before. So strange was the precision with which the incidents of the
      previous evening were repeating themselves that he half expected, when he
      heard the key turn, to see his wife before him on the threshold; but the
      door opened, and Mattie faced him.
    </p>
    <p>
      She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the
      black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and
      it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown
      wrist no bigger than a child's. Then, striking upward, it threw a lustrous
      fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky
      whiteness above the black curve of her brows.
    </p>
    <p>
      She wore her usual dress of darkish stuff, and there was no bow at her
      neck; but through her hair she had run a streak of crimson ribbon. This
      tribute to the unusual transformed and glorified her. She seemed to Ethan
      taller, fuller, more womanly in shape and motion. She stood aside, smiling
      silently, while he entered, and then moved away from him with something
      soft and flowing in her gait. She set the lamp on the table, and he saw
      that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh dough-nuts, stewed
      blueberries and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass. A bright
      fire glowed in the stove and the cat lay stretched before it, watching the
      table with a drowsy eye.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan was suffocated with the sense of well-being. He went out into the
      passage to hang up his coat and pull off his wet boots. When he came back
      Mattie had set the teapot on the table and the cat was rubbing itself
      persuasively against her ankles.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Puss! I nearly tripped over you,&rdquo; she cried, the laughter sparkling
      through her lashes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Again Ethan felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Could it be his coming that
      gave her such a kindled face?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Matt, any visitors?&rdquo; he threw off, stooping down carelessly to
      examine the fastening of the stove.
    </p>
    <p>
      She nodded and laughed &ldquo;Yes, one,&rdquo; and he felt a blackness settling on his
      brows.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who was that?&rdquo; he questioned, raising himself up to slant a glance at her
      beneath his scowl.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her eyes danced with malice. &ldquo;Why, Jotham Powell. He came in after he got
      back, and asked for a drop of coffee before he went down home.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The blackness lifted and light flooded Ethan's brain. &ldquo;That all? Well, I
      hope you made out to let him have it.&rdquo; And after a pause he felt it right
      to add: &ldquo;I suppose he got Zeena over to the Flats all right?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes; in plenty of time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The name threw a chill between them, and they stood a moment looking
      sideways at each other before Mattie said with a shy laugh. &ldquo;I guess it's
      about time for supper.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped
      between them into Zeena's empty chair. &ldquo;Oh, Puss!&rdquo; said Mattie, and they
      laughed again.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan, a moment earlier, had felt himself on the brink of eloquence; but
      the mention of Zeena had paralysed him. Mattie seemed to feel the
      contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
      tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
      pickles. At last, after casting about for an effective opening, he took a
      long gulp of tea, cleared his throat, and said: &ldquo;Looks as if there'd be
      more snow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She feigned great interest. &ldquo;Is that so? Do you suppose it'll interfere
      with Zeena's getting back?&rdquo; She flushed red as the question escaped her,
      and hastily set down the cup she was lifting.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan reached over for another helping of pickles. &ldquo;You never can tell,
      this time of year, it drifts so bad on the Flats.&rdquo; The name had benumbed
      him again, and once more he felt as if Zeena were in the room between
      them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Puss, you're too greedy!&rdquo; Mattie cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to the
      table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction of the
      milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie. The two leaned forward at
      the same moment and their hands met on the handle of the jug. Mattie's
      hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his clasped on it a moment longer than
      was necessary. The cat, profiting by this unusual demonstration, tried to
      effect an unnoticed retreat, and in doing so backed into the pickle-dish,
      which fell to the floor with a crash.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie, in an instant, had sprung from her chair and was down on her knees
      by the fragments.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ethan, Ethan&mdash;it's all to pieces! What will Zeena say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But this time his courage was up. &ldquo;Well, she'll have to say it to the cat,
      any way!&rdquo; he rejoined with a laugh, kneeling down at Mattie's side to
      scrape up the swimming pickles.
    </p>
    <p>
      She lifted stricken eyes to him. &ldquo;Yes, but, you see, she never meant it
      should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on
      the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china-closet,
      where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she'll want to
      know why I did it&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
      resolution.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She needn't know anything about it if you keep quiet. I'll get another
      just like it to-morrow. Where did it come from? I'll go to Shadd's Falls
      for it if I have to!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you'll never get another even there! It was a wedding present&mdash;don't
      you remember? It came all the way from Philadelphia, from Zeena's aunt
      that married the minister. That's why she wouldn't ever use it. Oh, Ethan,
      Ethan, what in the world shall I do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She began to cry, and he felt as if every one of her tears were pouring
      over him like burning lead. &ldquo;Don't, Matt, don't&mdash;oh, don't!&rdquo; he
      implored her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She struggled to her feet, and he rose and followed her helplessly while
      she spread out the pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It seemed to
      him as if the shattered fragments of their evening lay there.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here, give them to me,&rdquo; he said in a voice of sudden authority.
    </p>
    <p>
      She drew aside, instinctively obeying his tone. &ldquo;Oh, Ethan, what are you
      going to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Without replying he gathered the pieces of glass into his broad palm and
      walked out of the kitchen to the passage. There he lit a candle-end,
      opened the china-closet, and, reaching his long arm up to the highest
      shelf, laid the pieces together with such accuracy of touch that a close
      inspection convinced him of the impossibility of detecting from below that
      the dish was broken. If he glued it together the next morning months might
      elapse before his wife noticed what had happened, and meanwhile he might
      after all be able to match the dish at Shadd's Falls or Bettsbridge.
      Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of immediate discovery he
      went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and found Mattie
      disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the floor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's all right, Matt. Come back and finish supper,&rdquo; he commanded her.
    </p>
    <p>
      Completely reassured, she shone on him through tear-hung lashes, and his
      soul swelled with pride as he saw how his tone subdued her. She did not
      even ask what he had done. Except when he was steering a big log down the
      mountain to his mill he had never known such a thrilling sense of mastery.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      V
    </h2>
    <p>
      They finished supper, and while Mattie cleared the table Ethan went to
      look at the cows and then took a last turn about the house. The earth lay
      dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that now and then he
      heard a lump of snow come thumping down from a tree far off on the edge of
      the wood-lot.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he returned to the kitchen Mattie had pushed up his chair to the
      stove and seated herself near the lamp with a bit of sewing. The scene was
      just as he had dreamed of it that morning. He sat down, drew his pipe from
      his pocket and stretched his feet to the glow. His hard day's work in the
      keen air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood, and he had a
      confused sense of being in another world, where all was warmth and harmony
      and time could bring no change. The only drawback to his complete
      well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where he sat;
      but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said: &ldquo;Come over
      here and sit by the stove.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Zeena's empty rocking-chair stood facing him. Mattie rose obediently, and
      seated herself in it. As her young brown head detached itself against the
      patch-work cushion that habitually framed his wife's gaunt countenance,
      Ethan had a momentary shock. It was almost as if the other face, the face
      of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder. After a
      moment Mattie seemed to be affected by the same sense of constraint. She
      changed her position, leaning forward to bend her head above her work, so
      that he saw only the foreshortened tip of her nose and the streak of red
      in her hair; then she slipped to her feet, saying &ldquo;I can't see to sew,&rdquo;
       and went back to her chair by the lamp.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan made a pretext of getting up to replenish the stove, and when he
      returned to his seat he pushed it sideways that he might get a view of her
      profile and of the lamplight falling on her hands. The cat, who had been a
      puzzled observer of these unusual movements, jumped up into Zeena's chair,
      rolled itself into a ball, and lay watching them with narrowed eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Deep quiet sank on the room. The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece
      of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp scent
      of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which began to
      throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish cobwebs in the
      shadowy corners of the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      All constraint had vanished between the two, and they began to talk easily
      and simply. They spoke of every-day things, of the prospect of snow, of
      the next church sociable, of the loves and quarrels of Starkfield. The
      commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan an illusion of
      long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion could have given,
      and he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that they had always
      spent their evenings thus and would always go on doing so...
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is the night we were to have gone coasting, Matt,&rdquo; he said at
      length, with the rich sense, as he spoke, that they could go on any other
      night they chose, since they had all time before them.
    </p>
    <p>
      She smiled back at him. &ldquo;I guess you forgot!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I didn't forget; but it's as dark as Egypt outdoors. We might go
      to-morrow if there's a moon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She laughed with pleasure, her head tilted back, the lamplight sparkling
      on her lips and teeth. &ldquo;That would be lovely, Ethan!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He kept his eyes fixed on her, marvelling at the way her face changed with
      each turn of their talk, like a wheat-field under a summer breeze. It was
      intoxicating to find such magic in his clumsy words, and he longed to try
      new ways of using it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Would you be scared to go down the Corbury road with me on a night like
      this?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her cheeks burned redder. &ldquo;I ain't any more scared than you are!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'd be scared, then; I wouldn't do it. That's an ugly corner down
      by the big elm. If a fellow didn't keep his eyes open he'd go plumb into
      it.&rdquo; He luxuriated in the sense of protection and authority which his
      words conveyed. To prolong and intensify the feeling he added: &ldquo;I guess
      we're well enough here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She let her lids sink slowly, in the way he loved. &ldquo;Yes, we're well enough
      here,&rdquo; she sighed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her tone was so sweet that he took the pipe from his mouth and drew his
      chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the farther end of the
      strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. &ldquo;Say, Matt,&rdquo; he began with a
      smile, &ldquo;what do you think I saw under the Varnum spruces, coming along
      home just now? I saw a friend of yours getting kissed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The words had been on his tongue all the evening, but now that he had
      spoken them they struck him as inexpressibly vulgar and out of place.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly
      twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away
      from him. &ldquo;I suppose it was Ruth and Ned,&rdquo; she said in a low voice, as
      though he had suddenly touched on something grave.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the accepted
      pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless caress, if only a
      mere touch on her hand. But now he felt as if her blush had set a flaming
      guard about her. He supposed it was his natural awkwardness that made him
      feel so. He knew that most young men made nothing at all of giving a
      pretty girl a kiss, and he remembered that the night before, when he had
      put his arm about Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had been
      out-of-doors, under the open irresponsible night. Now, in the warm lamplit
      room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she
      seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable.
    </p>
    <p>
      To ease his constraint he said: &ldquo;I suppose they'll be setting a date
      before long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. I shouldn't wonder if they got married some time along in the
      summer.&rdquo; She pronounced the word married as if her voice caressed it. It
      seemed a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades. A pang shot through
      Ethan, and he said, twisting away from her in his chair: &ldquo;It'll be your
      turn next, I wouldn't wonder.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She laughed a little uncertainly. &ldquo;Why do you keep on saying that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He echoed her laugh. &ldquo;I guess I do it to get used to the idea.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with dropped
      lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way in which her
      hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen a
      pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were
      building. At length, without turning her head or lifting her lids, she
      said in a low tone: &ldquo;It's not because you think Zeena's got anything
      against me, is it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His former dread started up full-armed at the suggestion. &ldquo;Why, what do
      you mean?&rdquo; he stammered.
    </p>
    <p>
      She raised distressed eyes to his, her work dropping on the table between
      them. &ldquo;I don't know. I thought last night she seemed to have.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'd like to know what,&rdquo; he growled.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nobody can tell with Zeena.&rdquo; It was the first time they had ever spoken
      so openly of her attitude toward Mattie, and the repetition of the name
      seemed to carry it to the farther corners of the room and send it back to
      them in long repercussions of sound. Mattie waited, as if to give the echo
      time to drop, and then went on: &ldquo;She hasn't said anything to you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He shook his head. &ldquo;No, not a word.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She tossed the hair back from her forehead with a laugh. &ldquo;I guess I'm just
      nervous, then. I'm not going to think about it any more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;don't let's think about it, Matt!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The sudden heat of his tone made her colour mount again, not with a rush,
      but gradually, delicately, like the reflection of a thought stealing
      slowly across her heart. She sat silent, her hands clasped on her work,
      and it seemed to him that a warm current flowed toward him along the strip
      of stuff that still lay unrolled between them. Cautiously he slid his hand
      palm-downward along the table till his finger-tips touched the end of the
      stuff. A faint vibration of her lashes seemed to show that she was aware
      of his gesture, and that it had sent a counter-current back to her; and
      she let her hands lie motionless on the other end of the strip.
    </p>
    <p>
      As they sat thus he heard a sound behind him and turned his head. The cat
      had jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the wainscot, and as a
      result of the sudden movement the empty chair had set up a spectral
      rocking.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She'll be rocking in it herself this time to-morrow,&rdquo; Ethan thought.
      &ldquo;I've been in a dream, and this is the only evening we'll ever have
      together.&rdquo; The return to reality was as painful as the return to
      consciousness after taking an anaesthetic. His body and brain ached with
      indescribable weariness, and he could think of nothing to say or to do
      that should arrest the mad flight of the moments.
    </p>
    <p>
      His alteration of mood seemed to have communicated itself to Mattie. She
      looked up at him languidly, as though her lids were weighted with sleep
      and it cost her an effort to raise them. Her glance fell on his hand,
      which now completely covered the end of her work and grasped it as if it
      were a part of herself. He saw a scarcely perceptible tremor cross her
      face, and without knowing what he did he stooped his head and kissed the
      bit of stuff in his hold. As his lips rested on it he felt it glide slowly
      from beneath them, and saw that Mattie had risen and was silently rolling
      up her work. She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding her thimble and
      scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the box covered with fancy
      paper which he had once brought to her from Bettsbridge.
    </p>
    <p>
      He stood up also, looking vaguely about the room. The clock above the
      dresser struck eleven.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is the fire all right?&rdquo; she asked in a low voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      He opened the door of the stove and poked aimlessly at the embers. When he
      raised himself again he saw that she was dragging toward the stove the old
      soap-box lined with carpet in which the cat made its bed. Then she
      recrossed the floor and lifted two of the geranium pots in her arms,
      moving them away from the cold window. He followed her and brought the
      other geraniums, the hyacinth bulbs in a cracked custard bowl and the
      German ivy trained over an old croquet hoop.
    </p>
    <p>
      When these nightly duties were performed there was nothing left to do but
      to bring in the tin candlestick from the passage, light the candle and
      blow out the lamp. Ethan put the candlestick in Mattie's hand and she went
      out of the kitchen ahead of him, the light that she carried before her
      making her dark hair look like a drift of mist on the moon.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good night, Matt,&rdquo; he said as she put her foot on the first step of the
      stairs.
    </p>
    <p>
      She turned and looked at him a moment. &ldquo;Good night, Ethan,&rdquo; she answered,
      and went up.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the door of her room had closed on her he remembered that he had not
      even touched her hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VI
    </h2>
    <p>
      The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan
      tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging
      back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather, and
      not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away the
      dishes.
    </p>
    <p>
      He did not know why he was so irrationally happy, for nothing was changed
      in his life or hers. He had not even touched the tip of her fingers or
      looked her full in the eyes. But their evening together had given him a
      vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad now that he had
      done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture. He had a fancy that
      she knew what had restrained him...
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a last load of lumber to be hauled to the village, and Jotham
      Powell&mdash;who did not work regularly for Ethan in winter&mdash;had
      &ldquo;come round&rdquo; to help with the job. But a wet snow, melting to sleet, had
      fallen in the night and turned the roads to glass. There was more wet in
      the air and it seemed likely to both men that the weather would &ldquo;milden&rdquo;
       toward afternoon and make the going safer. Ethan therefore proposed to his
      assistant that they should load the sledge at the wood-lot, as they had
      done on the previous morning, and put off the &ldquo;teaming&rdquo; to Starkfield till
      later in the day. This plan had the advantage of enabling him to send
      Jotham to the Flats after dinner to meet Zenobia, while he himself took
      the lumber down to the village.
    </p>
    <p>
      He told Jotham to go out and harness up the greys, and for a moment he and
      Mattie had the kitchen to themselves. She had plunged the breakfast dishes
      into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms bared to
      the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead and
      tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils on the
      traveller's joy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan stood looking at her, his heart in his throat. He wanted to say: &ldquo;We
      shall never be alone again like this.&rdquo; Instead, he reached down his
      tobacco-pouch from a shelf of the dresser, put it into his pocket and
      said: &ldquo;I guess I can make out to be home for dinner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She answered &ldquo;All right, Ethan,&rdquo; and he heard her singing over the dishes
      as he went.
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as the sledge was loaded he meant to send Jotham back to the farm
      and hurry on foot into the village to buy the glue for the pickle-dish.
      With ordinary luck he should have had time to carry out this plan; but
      everything went wrong from the start. On the way over to the wood-lot one
      of the greys slipped on a glare of ice and cut his knee; and when they got
      him up again Jotham had to go back to the barn for a strip of rag to bind
      the cut. Then, when the loading finally began, a sleety rain was coming
      down once more, and the tree trunks were so slippery that it took twice as
      long as usual to lift them and get them in place on the sledge. It was
      what Jotham called a sour morning for work, and the horses, shivering and
      stamping under their wet blankets, seemed to like it as little as the men.
      It was long past the dinner-hour when the job was done, and Ethan had to
      give up going to the village because he wanted to lead the injured horse
      home and wash the cut himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      He thought that by starting out again with the lumber as soon as he had
      finished his dinner he might get back to the farm with the glue before
      Jotham and the old sorrel had had time to fetch Zenobia from the Flats;
      but he knew the chance was a slight one. It turned on the state of the
      roads and on the possible lateness of the Bettsbridge train. He remembered
      afterward, with a grim flash of self-derision, what importance he had
      attached to the weighing of these probabilities...
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as dinner was over he set out again for the wood-lot, not daring
      to linger till Jotham Powell left. The hired man was still drying his wet
      feet at the stove, and Ethan could only give Mattie a quick look as he
      said beneath his breath: &ldquo;I'll be back early.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He fancied that she nodded her comprehension; and with that scant solace
      he had to trudge off through the rain.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had driven his load half-way to the village when Jotham Powell overtook
      him, urging the reluctant sorrel toward the Flats. &ldquo;I'll have to hurry up
      to do it,&rdquo; Ethan mused, as the sleigh dropped down ahead of him over the
      dip of the school-house hill. He worked like ten at the unloading, and
      when it was over hastened on to Michael Eady's for the glue. Eady and his
      assistant were both &ldquo;down street,&rdquo; and young Denis, who seldom deigned to
      take their place, was lounging by the stove with a knot of the golden
      youth of Starkfield. They hailed Ethan with ironic compliment and offers
      of conviviality; but no one knew where to find the glue. Ethan, consumed
      with the longing for a last moment alone with Mattie, hung about
      impatiently while Denis made an ineffectual search in the obscurer corners
      of the store.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Looks as if we were all sold out. But if you'll wait around till the old
      man comes along maybe he can put his hand on it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm obliged to you, but I'll try if I can get it down at Mrs. Homan's,&rdquo;
       Ethan answered, burning to be gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to aver on oath that what Eady's
      store could not produce would never be found at the widow Homan's; but
      Ethan, heedless of this boast, had already climbed to the sledge and was
      driving on to the rival establishment. Here, after considerable search,
      and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted it for, and whether
      ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she couldn't find it, the
      widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary bottle of glue to its
      hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and corset-laces.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope Zeena ain't broken anything she sets store by,&rdquo; she called after
      him as he turned the greys toward home.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fitful bursts of sleet had changed into a steady rain and the horses
      had heavy work even without a load behind them. Once or twice, hearing
      sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that Zeena and Jotham might
      overtake him; but the old sorrel was not in sight, and he set his face
      against the rain and urged on his ponderous pair.
    </p>
    <p>
      The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them
      the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he
      strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie was there alone, as he had pictured her. She was bending over a pan
      on the stove; but at the sound of his step she turned with a start and
      sprang to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;See, here, Matt, I've got some stuff to mend the dish with! Let me get at
      it quick,&rdquo; he cried, waving the bottle in one hand while he put her
      lightly aside; but she did not seem to hear him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ethan&mdash;Zeena's come,&rdquo; she said in a whisper, clutching his
      sleeve.
    </p>
    <p>
      They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the sorrel's not in the barn!&rdquo; Ethan stammered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Jotham Powell brought some goods over from the Flats for his wife, and he
      drove right on home with them,&rdquo; she explained.
    </p>
    <p>
      He gazed blankly about the kitchen, which looked cold and squalid in the
      rainy winter twilight.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is she?&rdquo; he asked, dropping his voice to Mattie's whisper.
    </p>
    <p>
      She looked away from him uncertainly. &ldquo;I don't know. She went right up to
      her room.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She didn't say anything?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan let out his doubts in a low whistle and thrust the bottle back into
      his pocket. &ldquo;Don't fret; I'll come down and mend it in the night,&rdquo; he
      said. He pulled on his wet coat again and went back to the barn to feed
      the greys.
    </p>
    <p>
      While he was there Jotham Powell drove up with the sleigh, and when the
      horses had been attended to Ethan said to him: &ldquo;You might as well come
      back up for a bite.&rdquo; He was not sorry to assure himself of Jotham's
      neutralising presence at the supper table, for Zeena was always &ldquo;nervous&rdquo;
       after a journey. But the hired man, though seldom loth to accept a meal
      not included in his wages, opened his stiff jaws to answer slowly: &ldquo;I'm
      obliged to you, but I guess I'll go along back.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan looked at him in surprise. &ldquo;Better come up and dry off. Looks as if
      there'd be something hot for supper.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jotham's facial muscles were unmoved by this appeal and, his vocabulary
      being limited, he merely repeated: &ldquo;I guess I'll go along back.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of
      free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to
      nerve Jotham to such stoicism. Perhaps Zeena had failed to see the new
      doctor or had not liked his counsels: Ethan knew that in such cases the
      first person she met was likely to be held responsible for her grievance.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he re-entered the kitchen the lamp lit up the same scene of shining
      comfort as on the previous evening. The table had been as carefully laid,
      a clear fire glowed in the stove, the cat dozed in its warmth, and Mattie
      came forward carrying a plate of dough-nuts.
    </p>
    <p>
      She and Ethan looked at each other in silence; then she said, as she had
      said the night before: &ldquo;I guess it's about time for supper.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VII
    </h2>
    <p>
      Ethan went out into the passage to hang up his wet garments. He listened
      for Zeena's step and, not hearing it, called her name up the stairs. She
      did not answer, and after a moment's hesitation he went up and opened her
      door. The room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw her sitting by
      the window, bolt upright, and knew by the rigidity of the outline
      projected against the pane that she had not taken off her travelling
      dress.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Zeena,&rdquo; he ventured from the threshold.
    </p>
    <p>
      She did not move, and he continued: &ldquo;Supper's about ready. Ain't you
      coming?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She replied: &ldquo;I don't feel as if I could touch a morsel.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was the consecrated formula, and he expected it to be followed, as
      usual, by her rising and going down to supper. But she remained seated,
      and he could think of nothing more felicitous than: &ldquo;I presume you're
      tired after the long ride.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Turning her head at this, she answered solemnly: &ldquo;I'm a great deal sicker
      than you think.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her words fell on his ear with a strange shock of wonder. He had often
      heard her pronounce them before&mdash;what if at last they were true?
    </p>
    <p>
      He advanced a step or two into the dim room. &ldquo;I hope that's not so,
      Zeena,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      She continued to gaze at him through the twilight with a mien of wan
      authority, as of one consciously singled out for a great fate. &ldquo;I've got
      complications,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan knew the word for one of exceptional import. Almost everybody in the
      neighbourhood had &ldquo;troubles,&rdquo; frankly localized and specified; but only
      the chosen had &ldquo;complications.&rdquo; To have them was in itself a distinction,
      though it was also, in most cases, a death-warrant. People struggled on
      for years with &ldquo;troubles,&rdquo; but they almost always succumbed to
      &ldquo;complications.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan's heart was jerking to and fro between two extremities of feeling,
      but for the moment compassion prevailed. His wife looked so hard and
      lonely, sitting there in the darkness with such thoughts.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is that what the new doctor told you?&rdquo; he asked, instinctively lowering
      his voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. He says any regular doctor would want me to have an operation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan was aware that, in regard to the important question of surgical
      intervention, the female opinion of the neighbourhood was divided, some
      glorying in the prestige conferred by operations while others shunned them
      as indelicate. Ethan, from motives of economy, had always been glad that
      Zeena was of the latter faction.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the agitation caused by the gravity of her announcement he sought a
      consolatory short cut. &ldquo;What do you know about this doctor anyway? Nobody
      ever told you that before.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He saw his blunder before she could take it up: she wanted sympathy, not
      consolation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I didn't need to have anybody tell me I was losing ground every day.
      Everybody but you could see it. And everybody in Bettsbridge knows about
      Dr. Buck. He has his office in Worcester, and comes over once a fortnight
      to Shadd's Falls and Bettsbridge for consultations. Eliza Spears was
      wasting away with kidney trouble before she went to him, and now she's up
      and around, and singing in the choir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'm glad of that. You must do just what he tells you,&rdquo; Ethan
      answered sympathetically.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was still looking at him. &ldquo;I mean to,&rdquo; she said. He was struck by a
      new note in her voice. It was neither whining nor reproachful, but drily
      resolute.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What does he want you should do?&rdquo; he asked, with a mounting vision of
      fresh expenses.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He wants I should have a hired girl. He says I oughtn't to have to do a
      single thing around the house.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A hired girl?&rdquo; Ethan stood transfixed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. And Aunt Martha found me one right off. Everybody said I was lucky
      to get a girl to come away out here, and I agreed to give her a dollar
      extry to make sure. She'll be over to-morrow afternoon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Wrath and dismay contended in Ethan. He had foreseen an immediate demand
      for money, but not a permanent drain on his scant resources. He no longer
      believed what Zeena had told him of the supposed seriousness of her state:
      he saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge only a plot hatched between
      herself and her Pierce relations to foist on him the cost of a servant;
      and for the moment wrath predominated.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you meant to engage a girl you ought to have told me before you
      started,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How could I tell you before I started? How did I know what Dr. Buck would
      say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Dr. Buck&mdash;&rdquo; Ethan's incredulity escaped in a short laugh. &ldquo;Did
      Dr. Buck tell you how I was to pay her wages?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her voice rose furiously with his. &ldquo;No, he didn't. For I'd 'a' been
      ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my health,
      when I lost it nursing your own mother!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You lost your health nursing mother?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes; and my folks all told me at the time you couldn't do no less than
      marry me after&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Zeena!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Through the obscurity which hid their faces their thoughts seemed to dart
      at each other like serpents shooting venom. Ethan was seized with horror
      of the scene and shame at his own share in it. It was as senseless and
      savage as a physical fight between two enemies in the darkness.
    </p>
    <p>
      He turned to the shelf above the chimney, groped for matches and lit the
      one candle in the room. At first its weak flame made no impression on the
      shadows; then Zeena's face stood grimly out against the uncurtained pane,
      which had turned from grey to black.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad seven
      years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an irretrievable
      advantage in descending to the level of recrimination. But the practical
      problem was there and had to be dealt with.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You know I haven't got the money to pay for a girl, Zeena. You'll have to
      send her back: I can't do it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The doctor says it'll be my death if I go on slaving the way I've had to.
      He doesn't understand how I've stood it as long as I have.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Slaving!&mdash;&rdquo; He checked himself again, &ldquo;You sha'n't lift a hand, if
      he says so. I'll do everything round the house myself&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She broke in: &ldquo;You're neglecting the farm enough already,&rdquo; and this being
      true, he found no answer, and left her time to add ironically: &ldquo;Better
      send me over to the almshouse and done with it... I guess there's been
      Fromes there afore now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The taunt burned into him, but he let it pass. &ldquo;I haven't got the money.
      That settles it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a moment's pause in the struggle, as though the combatants were
      testing their weapons. Then Zeena said in a level voice: &ldquo;I thought you
      were to get fifty dollars from Andrew Hale for that lumber.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Andrew Hale never pays under three months.&rdquo; He had hardly spoken when he
      remembered the excuse he had made for not accompanying his wife to the
      station the day before; and the blood rose to his frowning brows.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, you told me yesterday you'd fixed it up with him to pay cash down.
      You said that was why you couldn't drive me over to the Flats.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan had no suppleness in deceiving. He had never before been convicted
      of a lie, and all the resources of evasion failed him. &ldquo;I guess that was a
      misunderstanding,&rdquo; he stammered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You ain't got the money?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you ain't going to get it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I couldn't know that when I engaged the girl, could I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo; He paused to control his voice. &ldquo;But you know it now. I'm sorry, but
      it can't be helped. You're a poor man's wife, Zeena; but I'll do the best
      I can for you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For a while she sat motionless, as if reflecting, her arms stretched along
      the arms of her chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. &ldquo;Oh, I guess we'll make
      out,&rdquo; she said mildly.
    </p>
    <p>
      The change in her tone reassured him. &ldquo;Of course we will! There's a whole
      lot more I can do for you, and Mattie&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Zeena, while he spoke, seemed to be following out some elaborate mental
      calculation. She emerged from it to say: &ldquo;There'll be Mattie's board less,
      any how&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan, supposing the discussion to be over, had turned to go down to
      supper. He stopped short, not grasping what he heard. &ldquo;Mattie's board less&mdash;?&rdquo;
       he began.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena laughed. It was an odd unfamiliar sound&mdash;he did not remember
      ever having heard her laugh before. &ldquo;You didn't suppose I was going to
      keep two girls, did you? No wonder you were scared at the expense!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He still had but a confused sense of what she was saying. From the
      beginning of the discussion he had instinctively avoided the mention of
      Mattie's name, fearing he hardly knew what: criticism, complaints, or
      vague allusions to the imminent probability of her marrying. But the
      thought of a definite rupture had never come to him, and even now could
      not lodge itself in his mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know what you mean,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Mattie Silver's not a hired girl.
      She's your relation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She's a pauper that's hung onto us all after her father'd done his best
      to ruin us. I've kep' her here a whole year: it's somebody else's turn
      now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As the shrill words shot out Ethan heard a tap on the door, which he had
      drawn shut when he turned back from the threshold.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ethan&mdash;Zeena!&rdquo; Mattie's voice sounded gaily from the landing, &ldquo;do
      you know what time it is? Supper's been ready half an hour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Inside the room there was a moment's silence; then Zeena called out from
      her seat: &ldquo;I'm not coming down to supper.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I'm sorry! Aren't you well? Sha'n't I bring you up a bite of
      something?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan roused himself with an effort and opened the door. &ldquo;Go along down,
      Matt. Zeena's just a little tired. I'm coming.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He heard her &ldquo;All right!&rdquo; and her quick step on the stairs; then he shut
      the door and turned back into the room. His wife's attitude was unchanged,
      her face inexorable, and he was seized with the despairing sense of his
      helplessness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You ain't going to do it, Zeena?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do what?&rdquo; she emitted between flattened lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Send Mattie away&mdash;like this?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I never bargained to take her for life!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He continued with rising vehemence: &ldquo;You can't put her out of the house
      like a thief&mdash;a poor girl without friends or money. She's done her
      best for you and she's got no place to go to. You may forget she's your
      kin but everybody else'll remember it. If you do a thing like that what do
      you suppose folks'll say of you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Zeena waited a moment, as if giving him time to feel the full force of the
      contrast between his own excitement and her composure. Then she replied in
      the same smooth voice: &ldquo;I know well enough what they say of my having kep'
      her here as long as I have.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan's hand dropped from the door-knob, which he had held clenched since
      he had drawn the door shut on Mattie. His wife's retort was like a
      knife-cut across the sinews and he felt suddenly weak and powerless. He
      had meant to humble himself, to argue that Mattie's keep didn't cost much,
      after all, that he could make out to buy a stove and fix up a place in the
      attic for the hired girl&mdash;but Zeena's words revealed the peril of
      such pleadings.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mean to tell her she's got to go&mdash;at once?&rdquo; he faltered out, in
      terror of letting his wife complete her sentence.
    </p>
    <p>
      As if trying to make him see reason she replied impartially: &ldquo;The girl
      will be over from Bettsbridge to-morrow, and I presume she's got to have
      somewheres to sleep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless creature
      who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but a
      mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long years of
      silent brooding. It was the sense of his helplessness that sharpened his
      antipathy. There had never been anything in her that one could appeal to;
      but as long as he could ignore and command he had remained indifferent.
      Now she had mastered him and he abhorred her. Mattie was her relation, not
      his: there were no means by which he could compel her to keep the girl
      under her roof. All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of
      failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and
      seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred
      his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take
      the one thing that made up for all the others. For a moment such a flame
      of hate rose in him that it ran down his arm and clenched his fist against
      her. He took a wild step forward and then stopped.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're&mdash;you're not coming down?&rdquo; he said in a bewildered voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. I guess I'll lay down on the bed a little while,&rdquo; she answered
      mildly; and he turned and walked out of the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the kitchen Mattie was sitting by the stove, the cat curled up on her
      knees. She sprang to her feet as Ethan entered and carried the covered
      dish of meat-pie to the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope Zeena isn't sick?&rdquo; she asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She shone at him across the table. &ldquo;Well, sit right down then. You must be
      starving.&rdquo; She uncovered the pie and pushed it over to him. So they were
      to have one more evening together, her happy eyes seemed to say!
    </p>
    <p>
      He helped himself mechanically and began to eat; then disgust took him by
      the throat and he laid down his fork.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie's tender gaze was on him and she marked the gesture.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Ethan, what's the matter? Don't it taste right?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;it's first-rate. Only I&mdash;&rdquo; He pushed his plate away,
      rose from his chair, and walked around the table to her side. She started
      up with frightened eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ethan, there's something wrong! I knew there was!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his
      arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted
      butterflies.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it&mdash;what is it?&rdquo; she stammered; but he had found her lips at
      last and was drinking unconsciousness of everything but the joy they gave
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      She lingered a moment, caught in the same strong current; then she slipped
      from him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled. Her look smote
      him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her drowning in a
      dream: &ldquo;You can't go, Matt! I'll never let you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go&mdash;go?&rdquo; she stammered. &ldquo;Must I go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The words went on sounding between them as though a torch of warning flew
      from hand to hand through a black landscape.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan was overcome with shame at his lack of self-control in flinging the
      news at her so brutally. His head reeled and he had to support himself
      against the table. All the while he felt as if he were still kissing her,
      and yet dying of thirst for her lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ethan, what has happened? Is Zeena mad with me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her cry steadied him, though it deepened his wrath and pity. &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he
      assured her, &ldquo;it's not that. But this new doctor has scared her about
      herself. You know she believes all they say the first time she sees them.
      And this one's told her she won't get well unless she lays up and don't do
      a thing about the house&mdash;not for months&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He paused, his eyes wandering from her miserably. She stood silent a
      moment, drooping before him like a broken branch. She was so small and
      weak-looking that it wrung his heart; but suddenly she lifted her head and
      looked straight at him. &ldquo;And she wants somebody handier in my place? Is
      that it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's what she says to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If she says it to-night she'll say it to-morrow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Both bowed to the inexorable truth: they knew that Zeena never changed her
      mind, and that in her case a resolve once taken was equivalent to an act
      performed.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a long silence between them; then Mattie said in a low voice:
      &ldquo;Don't be too sorry, Ethan.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, God&mdash;oh, God,&rdquo; he groaned. The glow of passion he had felt for
      her had melted to an aching tenderness. He saw her quick lids beating back
      the tears, and longed to take her in his arms and soothe her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're letting your supper get cold,&rdquo; she admonished him with a pale
      gleam of gaiety.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Matt&mdash;Matt&mdash;where'll you go to?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her lids sank and a tremor crossed her face. He saw that for the first
      time the thought of the future came to her distinctly. &ldquo;I might get
      something to do over at Stamford,&rdquo; she faltered, as if knowing that he
      knew she had no hope.
    </p>
    <p>
      He dropped back into his seat and hid his face in his hands. Despair
      seized him at the thought of her setting out alone to renew the weary
      quest for work. In the only place where she was known she was surrounded
      by indifference or animosity; and what chance had she, inexperienced and
      untrained, among the million bread-seekers of the cities? There came back
      to him miserable tales he had heard at Worcester, and the faces of girls
      whose lives had begun as hopefully as Mattie's.... It was not possible to
      think of such things without a revolt of his whole being. He sprang up
      suddenly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You can't go, Matt! I won't let you! She's always had her way, but I mean
      to have mine now&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mattie lifted her hand with a quick gesture, and he heard his wife's step
      behind him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena came into the room with her dragging down-at-the-heel step, and
      quietly took her accustomed seat between them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I felt a little mite better, and Dr. Buck says I ought to eat all I can
      to keep my strength up, even if I ain't got any appetite,&rdquo; she said in her
      flat whine, reaching across Mattie for the teapot. Her &ldquo;good&rdquo; dress had
      been replaced by the black calico and brown knitted shawl which formed her
      daily wear, and with them she had put on her usual face and manner. She
      poured out her tea, added a great deal of milk to it, helped herself
      largely to pie and pickles, and made the familiar gesture of adjusting her
      false teeth before she began to eat. The cat rubbed itself ingratiatingly
      against her, and she said &ldquo;Good Pussy,&rdquo; stooped to stroke it and gave it a
      scrap of meat from her plate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan sat speechless, not pretending to eat, but Mattie nibbled valiantly
      at her food and asked Zeena one or two questions about her visit to
      Bettsbridge. Zeena answered in her every-day tone and, warming to the
      theme, regaled them with several vivid descriptions of intestinal
      disturbances among her friends and relatives. She looked straight at
      Mattie as she spoke, a faint smile deepening the vertical lines between
      her nose and chin.
    </p>
    <p>
      When supper was over she rose from her seat and pressed her hand to the
      flat surface over the region of her heart. &ldquo;That pie of yours always sets
      a mite heavy, Matt,&rdquo; she said, not ill-naturedly. She seldom abbreviated
      the girl's name, and when she did so it was always a sign of affability.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've a good mind to go and hunt up those stomach powders I got last year
      over in Springfield,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;I ain't tried them for quite a
      while, and maybe they'll help the heartburn.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mattie lifted her eyes. &ldquo;Can't I get them for you, Zeena?&rdquo; she ventured.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. They're in a place you don't know about,&rdquo; Zeena answered darkly, with
      one of her secret looks.
    </p>
    <p>
      She went out of the kitchen and Mattie, rising, began to clear the dishes
      from the table. As she passed Ethan's chair their eyes met and clung
      together desolately. The warm still kitchen looked as peaceful as the
      night before. The cat had sprung to Zeena's rocking-chair, and the heat of
      the fire was beginning to draw out the faint sharp scent of the geraniums.
      Ethan dragged himself wearily to his feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll go out and take a look around,&rdquo; he said, going toward the passage to
      get his lantern.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he reached the door he met Zeena coming back into the room, her lips
      twitching with anger, a flush of excitement on her sallow face. The shawl
      had slipped from her shoulders and was dragging at her down-trodden heels,
      and in her hands she carried the fragments of the red glass pickle-dish.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'd like to know who done this,&rdquo; she said, looking sternly from Ethan to
      Mattie.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was no answer, and she continued in a trembling voice: &ldquo;I went to
      get those powders I'd put away in father's old spectacle-case, top of the
      china-closet, where I keep the things I set store by, so's folks shan't
      meddle with them&mdash;&rdquo; Her voice broke, and two small tears hung on her
      lashless lids and ran slowly down her cheeks. &ldquo;It takes the stepladder to
      get at the top shelf, and I put Aunt Philura Maple's pickle-dish up there
      o' purpose when we was married, and it's never been down since, 'cept for
      the spring cleaning, and then I always lifted it with my own hands, so's
      't it shouldn't get broke.&rdquo; She laid the fragments reverently on the table.
      &ldquo;I want to know who done this,&rdquo; she quavered.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the challenge Ethan turned back into the room and faced her. &ldquo;I can
      tell you, then. The cat done it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The cat?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's what I said.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She looked at him hard, and then turned her eyes to Mattie, who was
      carrying the dish-pan to the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'd like to know how the cat got into my china-closet&rdquo;' she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Chasin' mice, I guess,&rdquo; Ethan rejoined. &ldquo;There was a mouse round the
      kitchen all last evening.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Zeena continued to look from one to the other; then she emitted her small
      strange laugh. &ldquo;I knew the cat was a smart cat,&rdquo; she said in a high voice,
      &ldquo;but I didn't know he was smart enough to pick up the pieces of my
      pickle-dish and lay 'em edge to edge on the very shelf he knocked 'em off
      of.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mattie suddenly drew her arms out of the steaming water. &ldquo;It wasn't
      Ethan's fault, Zeena! The cat did break the dish; but I got it down from
      the china-closet, and I'm the one to blame for its getting broken.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Zeena stood beside the ruin of her treasure, stiffening into a stony image
      of resentment, &ldquo;You got down my pickle-dish-what for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A bright flush flew to Mattie's cheeks. &ldquo;I wanted to make the supper-table
      pretty,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You wanted to make the supper-table pretty; and you waited till my back
      was turned, and took the thing I set most store by of anything I've got,
      and wouldn't never use it, not even when the minister come to dinner, or
      Aunt Martha Pierce come over from Bettsbridge&mdash;&rdquo; Zeena paused with a
      gasp, as if terrified by her own evocation of the sacrilege. &ldquo;You're a bad
      girl, Mattie Silver, and I always known it. It's the way your father
      begun, and I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my
      things where you couldn't get at 'em&mdash;and now you've took from me the
      one I cared for most of all&mdash;&rdquo; She broke off in a short spasm of sobs
      that passed and left her more than ever like a shape of stone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I'd 'a' listened to folks, you'd 'a' gone before now, and this
      wouldn't 'a' happened,&rdquo; she said; and gathering up the bits of broken
      glass she went out of the room as if she carried a dead body...
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VIII
    </h2>
    <p>
      When Ethan was called back to the farm by his father's illness his mother
      gave him, for his own use, a small room behind the untenanted &ldquo;best
      parlour.&rdquo; Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built himself a
      box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on a
      kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
      Lincoln and a calendar with &ldquo;Thoughts from the Poets,&rdquo; and tried, with
      these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
      &ldquo;minister&rdquo; who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
      Worcester. He still took refuge there in summer, but when Mattie came to
      live at the farm he had to give her his stove, and consequently the room
      was uninhabitable for several months of the year.
    </p>
    <p>
      To this retreat he descended as soon as the house was quiet, and Zeena's
      steady breathing from the bed had assured him that there was to be no
      sequel to the scene in the kitchen. After Zeena's departure he and Mattie
      had stood speechless, neither seeking to approach the other. Then the girl
      had returned to her task of clearing up the kitchen for the night and he
      had taken his lantern and gone on his usual round outside the house. The
      kitchen was empty when he came back to it; but his tobacco-pouch and pipe
      had been laid on the table, and under them was a scrap of paper torn from
      the back of a seedsman's catalogue, on which three words were written:
      &ldquo;Don't trouble, Ethan.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Going into his cold dark &ldquo;study&rdquo; he placed the lantern on the table and,
      stooping to its light, read the message again and again. It was the first
      time that Mattie had ever written to him, and the possession of the paper
      gave him a strange new sense of her nearness; yet it deepened his anguish
      by reminding him that henceforth they would have no other way of
      communicating with each other. For the life of her smile, the warmth of
      her voice, only cold paper and dead words!
    </p>
    <p>
      Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him. He was too young, too
      strong, too full of the sap of living, to submit so easily to the
      destruction of his hopes. Must he wear out all his years at the side of a
      bitter querulous woman? Other possibilities had been in him, possibilities
      sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena's narrow-mindedness and ignorance. And
      what good had come of it? She was a hundred times bitterer and more
      discontented than when he had married her: the one pleasure left her was
      to inflict pain on him. All the healthy instincts of self-defence rose up
      in him against such waste...
    </p>
    <p>
      He bundled himself into his old coon-skin coat and lay down on the
      box-sofa to think. Under his cheek he felt a hard object with strange
      protuberances. It was a cushion which Zeena had made for him when they
      were engaged&mdash;the only piece of needlework he had ever seen her do.
      He flung it across the floor and propped his head against the wall...
    </p>
    <p>
      He knew a case of a man over the mountain&mdash;a young fellow of about
      his own age&mdash;who had escaped from just such a life of misery by going
      West with the girl he cared for. His wife had divorced him, and he had
      married the girl and prospered. Ethan had seen the couple the summer
      before at Shadd's Falls, where they had come to visit relatives. They had
      a little girl with fair curls, who wore a gold locket and was dressed like
      a princess. The deserted wife had not done badly either. Her husband had
      given her the farm and she had managed to sell it, and with that and the
      alimony she had started a lunch-room at Bettsbridge and bloomed into
      activity and importance. Ethan was fired by the thought. Why should he not
      leave with Mattie the next day, instead of letting her go alone? He would
      hide his valise under the seat of the sleigh, and Zeena would suspect
      nothing till she went upstairs for her afternoon nap and found a letter on
      the bed...
    </p>
    <p>
      His impulses were still near the surface, and he sprang up, re-lit the
      lantern, and sat down at the table. He rummaged in the drawer for a sheet
      of paper, found one, and began to write.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Zeena, I've done all I could for you, and I don't see as it's been any
      use. I don't blame you, nor I don't blame myself. Maybe both of us will do
      better separate. I'm going to try my luck West, and you can sell the farm
      and mill, and keep the money&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His pen paused on the word, which brought home to him the relentless
      conditions of his lot. If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what would be
      left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he was sure of
      picking up work&mdash;he would not have feared to try his chance alone.
      But with Mattie depending on him the case was different. And what of
      Zeena's fate? Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value,
      and even if she found a purchaser&mdash;in itself an unlikely chance&mdash;it
      was doubtful if she could clear a thousand dollars on the sale. Meanwhile,
      how could she keep the farm going? It was only by incessant labour and
      personal supervision that Ethan drew a meagre living from his land, and
      his wife, even if she were in better health than she imagined, could never
      carry such a burden alone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, she could go back to her people, then, and see what they would do
      for her. It was the fate she was forcing on Mattie&mdash;why not let her
      try it herself? By the time she had discovered his whereabouts, and
      brought suit for divorce, he would probably&mdash;wherever he was&mdash;be
      earning enough to pay her a sufficient alimony. And the alternative was to
      let Mattie go forth alone, with far less hope of ultimate provision...
    </p>
    <p>
      He had scattered the contents of the table-drawer in his search for a
      sheet of paper, and as he took up his pen his eye fell on an old copy of
      the Bettsbridge Eagle. The advertising sheet was folded uppermost, and he
      read the seductive words: &ldquo;Trips to the West: Reduced Rates.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He drew the lantern nearer and eagerly scanned the fares; then the paper
      fell from his hand and he pushed aside his unfinished letter. A moment ago
      he had wondered what he and Mattie were to live on when they reached the
      West; now he saw that he had not even the money to take her there.
      Borrowing was out of the question: six months before he had given his only
      security to raise funds for necessary repairs to the mill, and he knew
      that without security no one at Starkfield would lend him ten dollars. The
      inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a
      convict. There was no way out&mdash;none. He was a prisoner for life, and
      now his one ray of light was to be extinguished.
    </p>
    <p>
      He crept back heavily to the sofa, stretching himself out with limbs so
      leaden that he felt as if they would never move again. Tears rose in his
      throat and slowly burned their way to his lids.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he lay there, the window-pane that faced him, growing gradually
      lighter, inlaid upon the darkness a square of moon-suffused sky. A crooked
      tree-branch crossed it, a branch of the apple-tree under which, on summer
      evenings, he had sometimes found Mattie sitting when he came up from the
      mill. Slowly the rim of the rainy vapours caught fire and burnt away, and
      a pure moon swung into the blue. Ethan, rising on his elbow, watched the
      landscape whiten and shape itself under the sculpture of the moon. This
      was the night on which he was to have taken Mattie coasting, and there
      hung the lamp to light them! He looked out at the slopes bathed in lustre,
      the silver-edged darkness of the woods, the spectral purple of the hills
      against the sky, and it seemed as though all the beauty of the night had
      been poured out to mock his wretchedness...
    </p>
    <p>
      He fell asleep, and when he woke the chill of the winter dawn was in the
      room. He felt cold and stiff and hungry, and ashamed of being hungry. He
      rubbed his eyes and went to the window. A red sun stood over the grey rim
      of the fields, behind trees that looked black and brittle. He said to
      himself: &ldquo;This is Matt's last day,&rdquo; and tried to think what the place
      would be without her.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he stood there he heard a step behind him and she entered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ethan&mdash;were you here all night?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf
      wound about her, and the cold light turning her paleness sallow, that
      Ethan stood before her without speaking.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must be frozen,&rdquo; she went on, fixing lustreless eyes on him.
    </p>
    <p>
      He drew a step nearer. &ldquo;How did you know I was here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because I heard you go down stairs again after I went to bed, and I
      listened all night, and you didn't come up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All his tenderness rushed to his lips. He looked at her and said: &ldquo;I'll
      come right along and make up the kitchen fire.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They went back to the kitchen, and he fetched the coal and kindlings and
      cleared out the stove for her, while she brought in the milk and the cold
      remains of the meat-pie. When warmth began to radiate from the stove, and
      the first ray of sunlight lay on the kitchen floor, Ethan's dark thoughts
      melted in the mellower air. The sight of Mattie going about her work as he
      had seen her on so many mornings made it seem impossible that she should
      ever cease to be a part of the scene. He said to himself that he had
      doubtless exaggerated the significance of Zeena's threats, and that she
      too, with the return of daylight, would come to a saner mood.
    </p>
    <p>
      He went up to Mattie as she bent above the stove, and laid his hand on her
      arm. &ldquo;I don't want you should trouble either,&rdquo; he said, looking down into
      her eyes with a smile.
    </p>
    <p>
      She flushed up warmly and whispered back: &ldquo;No, Ethan, I ain't going to
      trouble.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess things'll straighten out,&rdquo; he added.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was no answer but a quick throb of her lids, and he went on: &ldquo;She
      ain't said anything this morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. I haven't seen her yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't you take any notice when you do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With this injunction he left her and went out to the cow-barn. He saw
      Jotham Powell walking up the hill through the morning mist, and the
      familiar sight added to his growing conviction of security.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the two men were clearing out the stalls Jotham rested on his
      pitch-fork to say: &ldquo;Dan'l Byrne's goin' over to the Flats to-day noon, an'
      he c'd take Mattie's trunk along, and make it easier ridin' when I take
      her over in the sleigh.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan looked at him blankly, and he continued: &ldquo;Mis' Frome said the new
      girl'd be at the Flats at five, and I was to take Mattie then, so's 't she
      could ketch the six o'clock train for Stamford.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan felt the blood drumming in his temples. He had to wait a moment
      before he could find voice to say: &ldquo;Oh, it ain't so sure about Mattie's
      going&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That so?&rdquo; said Jotham indifferently; and they went on with their work.
    </p>
    <p>
      When they returned to the kitchen the two women were already at breakfast.
      Zeena had an air of unusual alertness and activity. She drank two cups of
      coffee and fed the cat with the scraps left in the pie-dish; then she rose
      from her seat and, walking over to the window, snipped two or three yellow
      leaves from the geraniums. &ldquo;Aunt Martha's ain't got a faded leaf on 'em;
      but they pine away when they ain't cared for,&rdquo; she said reflectively. Then
      she turned to Jotham and asked: &ldquo;What time'd you say Dan'l Byrne'd be
      along?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The hired man threw a hesitating glance at Ethan.
      &ldquo;Round about noon,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena turned to Mattie. &ldquo;That trunk of yours is too heavy for the sleigh,
      and Dan'l Byrne'll be round to take it over to the Flats,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm much obliged to you, Zeena,&rdquo; said Mattie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'd like to go over things with you first,&rdquo; Zeena continued in an
      unperturbed voice. &ldquo;I know there's a huckabuck towel missing; and I can't
      make out what you done with that match-safe 't used to stand behind the
      stuffed owl in the parlour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She went out, followed by Mattie, and when the men were alone Jotham said
      to his employer: &ldquo;I guess I better let Dan'l come round, then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan finished his usual morning tasks about the house and barn; then he
      said to Jotham: &ldquo;I'm going down to Starkfield. Tell them not to wait
      dinner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The passion of rebellion had broken out in him again. That which had
      seemed incredible in the sober light of day had really come to pass, and
      he was to assist as a helpless spectator at Mattie's banishment. His
      manhood was humbled by the part he was compelled to play and by the
      thought of what Mattie must think of him. Confused impulses struggled in
      him as he strode along to the village. He had made up his mind to do
      something, but he did not know what it would be.
    </p>
    <p>
      The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield under
      the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines through
      a pale haze of spring. Every yard of the road was alive with Mattie's
      presence, and there was hardly a branch against the sky or a tangle of
      brambles on the bank in which some bright shred of memory was not caught.
      Once, in the stillness, the call of a bird in a mountain ash was so like
      her laughter that his heart tightened and then grew large; and all these
      things made him see that something must be done at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly it occurred to him that Andrew Hale, who was a kind-hearted man,
      might be induced to reconsider his refusal and advance a small sum on the
      lumber if he were told that Zeena's ill-health made it necessary to hire a
      servant. Hale, after all, knew enough of Ethan's situation to make it
      possible for the latter to renew his appeal without too much loss of
      pride; and, moreover, how much did pride count in the ebullition of
      passions in his breast?
    </p>
    <p>
      The more he considered his plan the more hopeful it seemed. If he could
      get Mrs. Hale's ear he felt certain of success, and with fifty dollars in
      his pocket nothing could keep him from Mattie...
    </p>
    <p>
      His first object was to reach Starkfield before Hale had started for his
      work; he knew the carpenter had a job down the Corbury road and was likely
      to leave his house early. Ethan's long strides grew more rapid with the
      accelerated beat of his thoughts, and as he reached the foot of School
      House Hill he caught sight of Hale's sleigh in the distance. He hurried
      forward to meet it, but as it drew nearer he saw that it was driven by the
      carpenter's youngest boy and that the figure at his side, looking like a
      large upright cocoon in spectacles, was that of Mrs. Hale. Ethan signed to
      them to stop, and Mrs. Hale leaned forward, her pink wrinkles twinkling
      with benevolence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Hale? Why, yes, you'll find him down home now. He ain't going to his
      work this forenoon. He woke up with a touch o' lumbago, and I just made
      him put on one of old Dr. Kidder's plasters and set right up into the
      fire.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Beaming maternally on Ethan, she bent over to add: &ldquo;I on'y just heard from
      Mr. Hale 'bout Zeena's going over to Bettsbridge to see that new doctor.
      I'm real sorry she's feeling so bad again! I hope he thinks he can do
      something for her. I don't know anybody round here's had more sickness
      than Zeena. I always tell Mr. Hale I don't know what she'd 'a' done if she
      hadn't 'a' had you to look after her; and I used to say the same thing
      'bout your mother. You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She gave him a last nod of sympathy while her son chirped to the horse;
      and Ethan, as she drove off, stood in the middle of the road and stared
      after the retreating sleigh.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a long time since any one had spoken to him as kindly as Mrs. Hale.
      Most people were either indifferent to his troubles, or disposed to think
      it natural that a young fellow of his age should have carried without
      repining the burden of three crippled lives. But Mrs. Hale had said,
      &ldquo;You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome,&rdquo; and he felt less alone with
      his misery. If the Hales were sorry for him they would surely respond to
      his appeal...
    </p>
    <p>
      He started down the road toward their house, but at the end of a few yards
      he pulled up sharply, the blood in his face. For the first time, in the
      light of the words he had just heard, he saw what he was about to do. He
      was planning to take advantage of the Hales' sympathy to obtain money from
      them on false pretences. That was a plain statement of the cloudy purpose
      which had driven him in headlong to Starkfield.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the sudden perception of the point to which his madness had carried
      him, the madness fell and he saw his life before him as it was. He was a
      poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his desertion would leave
      alone and destitute; and even if he had had the heart to desert her he
      could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied him.
    </p>
    <p>
      He turned and walked slowly back to the farm.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IX
    </h2>
    <p>
      At the kitchen door Daniel Byrne sat in his sleigh behind a big-boned grey
      who pawed the snow and swung his long head restlessly from side to side.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan went into the kitchen and found his wife by the stove. Her head was
      wrapped in her shawl, and she was reading a book called &ldquo;Kidney Troubles
      and Their Cure&rdquo; on which he had had to pay extra postage only a few days
      before.
    </p>
    <p>
      Zeena did not move or look up when he entered, and after a moment he
      asked: &ldquo;Where's Mattie?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Without lifting her eyes from the page she replied: &ldquo;I presume she's
      getting down her trunk.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The blood rushed to his face. &ldquo;Getting down her trunk&mdash;alone?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Jotham Powell's down in the wood-lot, and Dan'l Byrne says he darsn't
      leave that horse,&rdquo; she returned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her husband, without stopping to hear the end of the phrase, had left the
      kitchen and sprung up the stairs. The door of Mattie's room was shut, and
      he wavered a moment on the landing. &ldquo;Matt,&rdquo; he said in a low voice; but
      there was no answer, and he put his hand on the door-knob.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had never been in her room except once, in the early summer, when he
      had gone there to plaster up a leak in the eaves, but he remembered
      exactly how everything had looked: the red-and-white quilt on her narrow
      bed, the pretty pin-cushion on the chest of drawers, and over it the
      enlarged photograph of her mother, in an oxydized frame, with a bunch of
      dyed grasses at the back. Now these and all other tokens of her presence
      had vanished, and the room looked as bare and comfortless as when Zeena had
      shown her into it on the day of her arrival. In the middle of the floor
      stood her trunk, and on the trunk she sat in her Sunday dress, her back
      turned to the door and her face in her hands. She had not heard Ethan's
      call because she was sobbing and she did not hear his step till he stood
      close behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Matt&mdash;oh, don't&mdash;oh, Matt!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She started up, lifting her wet face to his. &ldquo;Ethan&mdash;I thought I
      wasn't ever going to see you again!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He took her in his arms, pressing her close, and with a trembling hand
      smoothed away the hair from her forehead.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not see me again? What do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She sobbed out: &ldquo;Jotham said you told him we wasn't to wait dinner for
      you, and I thought&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You thought I meant to cut it?&rdquo; he finished for her grimly.
    </p>
    <p>
      She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair,
      which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had
      the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      Through the door they heard Zeena's voice calling out from below: &ldquo;Dan'l
      Byrne says you better hurry up if you want him to take that trunk.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They drew apart with stricken faces. Words of resistance rushed to Ethan's
      lips and died there. Mattie found her handkerchief and dried her eyes;
      then, bending down, she took hold of a handle of the trunk.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan put her aside. &ldquo;You let go, Matt,&rdquo; he ordered her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She answered: &ldquo;It takes two to coax it round the corner&rdquo;; and submitting
      to this argument he grasped the other handle, and together they manoeuvred
      the heavy trunk out to the landing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now let go,&rdquo; he repeated; then he shouldered the trunk and carried it
      down the stairs and across the passage to the kitchen. Zeena, who had gone
      back to her seat by the stove, did not lift her head from her book as he
      passed. Mattie followed him out of the door and helped him to lift the
      trunk into the back of the sleigh. When it was in place they stood side by
      side on the door-step, watching Daniel Byrne plunge off behind his fidgety
      horse.
    </p>
    <p>
      It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an unseen
      hand was tightening with every tick of the clock. Twice he opened his lips
      to speak to Mattie and found no breath. At length, as she turned to
      re-enter the house, he laid a detaining hand on her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going to drive you over, Matt,&rdquo; he whispered.
    </p>
    <p>
      She murmured back: &ldquo;I think Zeena wants I should go with Jotham.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going to drive you over,&rdquo; he repeated; and she went into the kitchen
      without answering.
    </p>
    <p>
      At dinner Ethan could not eat. If he lifted his eyes they rested on
      Zeena's pinched face, and the corners of her straight lips seemed to
      quiver away into a smile. She ate well, declaring that the mild weather
      made her feel better, and pressed a second helping of beans on Jotham
      Powell, whose wants she generally ignored.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie, when the meal was over, went about her usual task of clearing the
      table and washing up the dishes. Zeena, after feeding the cat, had
      returned to her rocking-chair by the stove, and Jotham Powell, who always
      lingered last, reluctantly pushed back his chair and moved toward the
      door.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the threshold he turned back to say to Ethan: &ldquo;What time'll I come
      round for Mattie?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan was standing near the window, mechanically filling his pipe while he
      watched Mattie move to and fro. He answered: &ldquo;You needn't come round; I'm
      going to drive her over myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He saw the rise of the colour in Mattie's averted cheek, and the quick
      lifting of Zeena's head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want you should stay here this afternoon, Ethan,&rdquo; his wife said.
      &ldquo;Jotham can drive Mattie over.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mattie flung an imploring glance at him, but he repeated curtly: &ldquo;I'm
      going to drive her over myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Zeena continued in the same even tone: &ldquo;I wanted you should stay and fix
      up that stove in Mattie's room afore the girl gets here. It ain't been
      drawing right for nigh on a month now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan's voice rose indignantly. &ldquo;If it was good enough for Mattie I guess
      it's good enough for a hired girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That girl that's coming told me she was used to a house where they had a
      furnace,&rdquo; Zeena persisted with the same monotonous mildness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She'd better ha' stayed there then,&rdquo; he flung back at her; and turning to
      Mattie he added in a hard voice: &ldquo;You be ready by three, Matt; I've got
      business at Corbury.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jotham Powell had started for the barn, and Ethan strode down after him
      aflame with anger. The pulses in his temples throbbed and a fog was in his
      eyes. He went about his task without knowing what force directed him, or
      whose hands and feet were fulfilling its orders. It was not till he led
      out the sorrel and backed him between the shafts of the sleigh that he
      once more became conscious of what he was doing. As he passed the bridle
      over the horse's head, and wound the traces around the shafts, he
      remembered the day when he had made the same preparations in order to
      drive over and meet his wife's cousin at the Flats. It was little more
      than a year ago, on just such a soft afternoon, with a &ldquo;feel&rdquo; of spring in
      the air. The sorrel, turning the same big ringed eye on him, nuzzled the
      palm of his hand in the same way; and one by one all the days between rose
      up and stood before him...
    </p>
    <p>
      He flung the bearskin into the sleigh, climbed to the seat, and drove up
      to the house. When he entered the kitchen it was empty, but Mattie's bag
      and shawl lay ready by the door. He went to the foot of the stairs and
      listened. No sound reached him from above, but presently he thought he
      heard some one moving about in his deserted study, and pushing open the
      door he saw Mattie, in her hat and jacket, standing with her back to him
      near the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      She started at his approach and turning quickly, said: &ldquo;Is it time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What are you doing here, Matt?&rdquo; he asked her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She looked at him timidly. &ldquo;I was just taking a look round&mdash;that's
      all,&rdquo; she answered, with a wavering smile.
    </p>
    <p>
      They went back into the kitchen without speaking, and Ethan picked up her
      bag and shawl.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where's Zeena?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She went upstairs right after dinner. She said she had those shooting
      pains again, and didn't want to be disturbed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Didn't she say good-bye to you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. That was all she said.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ethan, looking slowly about the kitchen, said to himself with a shudder
      that in a few hours he would be returning to it alone. Then the sense of
      unreality overcame him once more, and he could not bring himself to
      believe that Mattie stood there for the last time before him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; he said almost gaily, opening the door and putting her bag into
      the sleigh. He sprang to his seat and bent over to tuck the rug about her
      as she slipped into the place at his side. &ldquo;Now then, go 'long,&rdquo; he said,
      with a shake of the reins that sent the sorrel placidly jogging down the
      hill.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We got lots of time for a good ride, Matt!&rdquo; he cried, seeking her hand
      beneath the fur and pressing it in his. His face tingled and he felt
      dizzy, as if he had stopped in at the Starkfield saloon on a zero day for
      a drink.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the gate, instead of making for Starkfield, he turned the sorrel to the
      right, up the Bettsbridge road. Mattie sat silent, giving no sign of
      surprise; but after a moment she said: &ldquo;Are you going round by Shadow
      Pond?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He laughed and answered: &ldquo;I knew you'd know!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She drew closer under the bearskin, so that, looking sideways around his
      coat-sleeve, he could just catch the tip of her nose and a blown brown
      wave of hair. They drove slowly up the road between fields glistening
      under the pale sun, and then bent to the right down a lane edged with
      spruce and larch. Ahead of them, a long way off, a range of hills stained
      by mottlings of black forest flowed away in round white curves against the
      sky. The lane passed into a pine-wood with boles reddening in the
      afternoon sun and delicate blue shadows on the snow. As they entered it
      the breeze fell and a warm stillness seemed to drop from the branches with
      the dropping needles. Here the snow was so pure that the tiny tracks of
      wood-animals had left on it intricate lace-like patterns, and the bluish
      cones caught in its surface stood out like ornaments of bronze.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ethan drove on in silence till they reached a part of the wood where the
      pines were more widely spaced; then he drew up and helped Mattie to get
      out of the sleigh. They passed between the aromatic trunks, the snow
      breaking crisply under their feet, till they came to a small sheet of
      water with steep wooded sides. Across its frozen surface, from the farther
      bank, a single hill rising against the western sun threw the long conical
      shadow which gave the lake its name. It was a shy secret spot, full of the
      same dumb melancholy that Ethan felt in his heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      He looked up and down the little pebbly beach till his eye lit on a fallen
      tree-trunk half submerged in snow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's where we sat at the picnic,&rdquo; he reminded her.
    </p>
    <p>
      The entertainment of which he spoke was one of the few that they had taken
      part in together: a &ldquo;church picnic&rdquo; which, on a long afternoon of the
      preceding summer, had filled the retired place with merry-making. Mattie
      had begged him to go with her but he had refused. Then, toward sunset,
      coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber, he had
      been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by the
      lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as a
      blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy fire.
      He remembered the shyness he had felt at approaching her in his uncouth
      clothes, and then the lighting up of her face, and the way she had broken
      through the group to come to him with a cup in her hand. They had sat for
      a few minutes on the fallen log by the pond, and she had missed her gold
      locket, and set the young men searching for it; and it was Ethan who had
      spied it in the moss.... That was all; but all their intercourse had been
      made up of just such inarticulate flashes, when they seemed to come
      suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter
      woods...
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was right there I found your locket,&rdquo; he said, pushing his foot into a
      dense tuft of blueberry bushes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I never saw anybody with such sharp eyes!&rdquo; she answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      She sat down on the tree-trunk in the sun and he sat down beside her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You were as pretty as a picture in that pink hat,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      She laughed with pleasure. &ldquo;Oh, I guess it was the hat!&rdquo; she rejoined.
    </p>
    <p>
      They had never before avowed their inclination so openly, and Ethan, for a
      moment, had the illusion that he was a free man, wooing the girl he meant
      to marry. He looked at her hair and longed to touch it again, and to tell
      her that it smelt of the woods; but he had never learned to say such
      things.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly she rose to her feet and said: &ldquo;We mustn't stay here any longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He continued to gaze at her vaguely, only half-roused from his dream.
      &ldquo;There's plenty of time,&rdquo; he answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      They stood looking at each other as if the eyes of each were straining to
      absorb and hold fast the other's image. There were things he had to say to
      her before they parted, but he could not say them in that place of summer
      memories, and he turned and followed her in silence to the sleigh. As they
      drove away the sun sank behind the hill and the pine-boles turned from red
      to grey.
    </p>
    <p>
      By a devious track between the fields they wound back to the Starkfield
      road. Under the open sky the light was still clear, with a reflection of
      cold red on the eastern hills. The clumps of trees in the snow seemed to
      draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds with their heads under their
      wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more
      alone.
    </p>
    <p>
      As they turned into the Starkfield road Ethan said: &ldquo;Matt, what do you
      mean to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She did not answer at once, but at length she said: &ldquo;I'll try to get a
      place in a store.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You know you can't do it. The bad air and the standing all day nearly
      killed you before.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm a lot stronger than I was before I came to Starkfield.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And now you're going to throw away all the good it's done you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There seemed to be no answer to this, and again they drove on for a while
      without speaking. With every yard of the way some spot where they had
      stood, and laughed together or been silent, clutched at Ethan and dragged
      him back.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Isn't there any of your father's folks could help you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There isn't any of 'em I'd ask.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He lowered his voice to say: &ldquo;You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for
      you if I could.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know there isn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I can't&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She was silent, but he felt a slight tremor in the shoulder against his.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Matt,&rdquo; he broke out, &ldquo;if I could ha' gone with you now I'd ha' done
      it&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She turned to him, pulling a scrap of paper from her breast. &ldquo;Ethan&mdash;I
      found this,&rdquo; she stammered. Even in the failing light he saw it was the
      letter to his wife that he had begun the night before and forgotten to
      destroy. Through his astonishment there ran a fierce thrill of joy. &ldquo;Matt&mdash;&rdquo;
       he cried; &ldquo;if I could ha' done it, would you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ethan, Ethan&mdash;what's the use?&rdquo; With a sudden movement she tore
      the letter in shreds and sent them fluttering off into the snow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell me, Matt! Tell me!&rdquo; he adjured her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was silent for a moment; then she said, in such a low tone that he had
      to stoop his head to hear her: &ldquo;I used to think of it sometimes, summer
      nights when the moon was so bright. I couldn't sleep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His heart reeled with the sweetness of it. &ldquo;As long ago as that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She answered, as if the date had long been fixed for her: &ldquo;The first time
      was at Shadow Pond.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was that why you gave me my coffee before the others?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know. Did I? I was dreadfully put out when you wouldn't go to the
      picnic with me; and then, when I saw you coming down the road, I thought
      maybe you'd gone home that way o' purpose; and that made me glad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They were silent again. They had reached the point where the road dipped
      to the hollow by Ethan's mill and as they descended the darkness descended
      with them, dropping down like a black veil from the heavy hemlock boughs.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm tied hand and foot, Matt. There isn't a thing I can do,&rdquo; he began
      again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must write to me sometimes, Ethan.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, what good'll writing do? I want to put my hand out and touch you. I
      want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when you're sick
      and when you're lonesome.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mustn't think but what I'll do all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You won't need me, you mean? I suppose you'll marry!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ethan!&rdquo; she cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know how it is you make me feel, Matt. I'd a'most rather have you
      dead than that!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I wish I was, I wish I was!&rdquo; she sobbed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sound of her weeping shook him out of his dark anger, and he felt
      ashamed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't let's talk that way,&rdquo; he whispered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why shouldn't we, when it's true? I've been wishing it every minute of
      the day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Matt! You be quiet! Don't you say it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's never anybody been good to me but you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't say that either, when I can't lift a hand for you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes; but it's true just the same.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They had reached the top of School House Hill and Starkfield lay below
      them in the twilight. A cutter, mounting the road from the village, passed
      them by in a joyous flutter of bells, and they straightened themselves and
      looked ahead with rigid faces. Along the main street lights had begun to
      shine from the house-fronts and stray figures were turning in here and
      there at the gates. Ethan, with a touch of his whip, roused the sorrel to
      a languid trot.
    </p>
    <p>
      As they drew near the end of the village the cries of children reached
      them, and they saw a knot of boys, with sleds behind them, scattering
      across the open space before the church.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess this'll be their last coast for a day or two,&rdquo; Ethan said,
      looking up at the mild sky.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mattie was silent, and he added: &ldquo;We were to have gone down last night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Still she did not speak and, prompted by an obscure desire to help himself
      and her through their miserable last hour, he went on discursively: &ldquo;Ain't
      it funny we haven't been down together but just that once last winter?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She answered: &ldquo;It wasn't often I got down to the village.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      They had reached the crest of the Corbury road, and between the indistinct
      white glimmer of the church and the black curtain of the Varnum spruces
      the slope stretched away below them without a sled on its length. Some
      erratic impulse prompted Ethan to say: &ldquo;How'd you like me to take you down
      now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She forced a laugh. &ldquo;Why, there isn't time!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's all the time we want. Come along!&rdquo; His one desire now was to
      postpone the moment of turning the sorrel toward the Flats.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the girl,&rdquo; she faltered. &ldquo;The girl'll be waiting at the station.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, let her wait. You'd have to if she didn't. Come!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The note of authority in his voice seemed to subdue her, and when he had
      jumped from the sleigh she let him help her out, saying only, with a vague
      feint of reluctance: &ldquo;But there isn't a sled round anywheres.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, there is! Right over there under the spruces.&rdquo; He threw the bearskin
      over the sorrel, who stood passively by the roadside, hanging a meditative
      head. Then he caught Mattie's hand and drew her after him toward the sled.
    </p>
    <p>
      She seated herself obediently and he took his place behind her, so close
      that her hair brushed his face. &ldquo;All right, Matt?&rdquo; he called out, as if
      the width of the road had been between them.
    </p>
    <p>
      She turned her head to say: &ldquo;It's dreadfully dark. Are you sure you can
      see?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He laughed contemptuously: &ldquo;I could go down this coast with my eyes tied!&rdquo;
       and she laughed with him, as if she liked his audacity. Nevertheless he
      sat still a moment, straining his eyes down the long hill, for it was the
      most confusing hour of the evening, the hour when the last clearness from
      the upper sky is merged with the rising night in a blur that disguises
      landmarks and falsifies distances.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now!&rdquo; he cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sled started with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk,
      gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow night opening
      out below them and the air singing by like an organ. Mattie sat perfectly
      still, but as they reached the bend at the foot of the hill, where the big
      elm thrust out a deadly elbow, he fancied that she shrank a little closer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't be scared, Matt!&rdquo; he cried exultantly, as they spun safely past it
      and flew down the second slope; and when they reached the level ground
      beyond, and the speed of the sled began to slacken, he heard her give a
      little laugh of glee.
    </p>
    <p>
      They sprang off and started to walk back up the hill. Ethan dragged the
      sled with one hand and passed the other through Mattie's arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Were you scared I'd run you into the elm?&rdquo; he asked with a boyish laugh.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I told you I was never scared with you,&rdquo; she answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      The strange exaltation of his mood had brought on one of his rare fits of
      boastfulness. &ldquo;It is a tricky place, though. The least swerve, and we'd
      never ha' come up again. But I can measure distances to a
      hair's-breadth&mdash;always could.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She murmured: &ldquo;I always say you've got the surest eye...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Deep silence had fallen with the starless dusk, and they leaned on each
      other without speaking; but at every step of their climb Ethan said to
      himself: &ldquo;It's the last time we'll ever walk together.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They mounted slowly to the top of the hill. When they were abreast of the
      church he stooped his head to her to ask: &ldquo;Are you tired?&rdquo; and she
      answered, breathing quickly: &ldquo;It was splendid!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With a pressure of his arm he guided her toward the Norway spruces. &ldquo;I
      guess this sled must be Ned Hale's. Anyhow I'll leave it where I found
      it.&rdquo; He drew the sled up to the Varnum gate and rested it against the
      fence. As he raised himself he suddenly felt Mattie close to him among the
      shadows.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is this where Ned and Ruth kissed each other?&rdquo; she whispered
      breathlessly, and flung her arms about him. Her lips, groping for his,
      swept over his face, and he held her fast in a rapture of surprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye-good-bye,&rdquo; she stammered, and kissed him again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Matt, I can't let you go!&rdquo; broke from him in the same old cry.
    </p>
    <p>
      She freed herself from his hold and he heard her sobbing. &ldquo;Oh, I can't go
      either!&rdquo; she wailed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Matt! What'll we do? What'll we do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They clung to each other's hands like children, and her body shook with
      desperate sobs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Through the stillness they heard the church clock striking five.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Ethan, it's time!&rdquo; she cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      He drew her back to him. &ldquo;Time for what? You don't suppose I'm going to
      leave you now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I missed my train where'd I go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where are you going if you catch it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She stood silent, her hands lying cold and relaxed in his.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the good of either of us going anywheres without the other one
      now?&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      She remained motionless, as if she had not heard him. Then she snatched
      her hands from his, threw her arms about his neck, and pressed a sudden
      drenched cheek against his face. &ldquo;Ethan! Ethan! I want you to take me down
      again!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Down where?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The coast. Right off,&rdquo; she panted. &ldquo;So 't we'll never come up any more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Matt! What on earth do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She put her lips close against his ear to say: &ldquo;Right into the big elm.
      You said you could. So 't we'd never have to leave each other any more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, what are you talking of? You're crazy!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm not crazy; but I will be if I leave you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Matt, Matt&mdash;&rdquo; he groaned.
    </p>
    <p>
      She tightened her fierce hold about his neck. Her face lay close to his
      face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ethan, where'll I go if I leave you? I don't know how to get along alone.
      You said so yourself just now. Nobody but you was ever good to me. And
      there'll be that strange girl in the house... and she'll sleep in my bed,
      where I used to lay nights and listen to hear you come up the stairs...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The words were like fragments torn from his heart. With them came the
      hated vision of the house he was going back to&mdash;of the stairs he
      would have to go up every night, of the woman who would wait for him
      there. And the sweetness of Mattie's avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at
      last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the
      other vision more abhorrent, the other life more intolerable to return
      to...
    </p>
    <p>
      Her pleadings still came to him between short sobs, but he no longer heard
      what she was saying. Her hat had slipped back and he was stroking her
      hair. He wanted to get the feeling of it into his hand, so that it would
      sleep there like a seed in winter. Once he found her mouth again, and they
      seemed to be by the pond together in the burning August sun. But his cheek
      touched hers, and it was cold and full of weeping, and he saw the road to
      the Flats under the night and heard the whistle of the train up the line.
    </p>
    <p>
      The spruces swathed them in blackness and silence. They might have been in
      their coffins underground. He said to himself: &ldquo;Perhaps it'll feel like
      this...&rdquo; and then again: &ldquo;After this I sha'n't feel anything...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly he heard the old sorrel whinny across the road, and thought:
      &ldquo;He's wondering why he doesn't get his supper...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; Mattie whispered, tugging at his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her sombre violence constrained him: she seemed the embodied instrument of
      fate. He pulled the sled out, blinking like a night-bird as he passed from
      the shade of the spruces into the transparent dusk of the open. The slope
      below them was deserted. All Starkfield was at supper, and not a figure
      crossed the open space before the church. The sky, swollen with the clouds
      that announce a thaw, hung as low as before a summer storm. He strained
      his eyes through the dimness, and they seemed less keen, less capable than
      usual.
    </p>
    <p>
      He took his seat on the sled and Mattie instantly placed herself in front
      of him. Her hat had fallen into the snow and his lips were in her hair. He
      stretched out his legs, drove his heels into the road to keep the sled
      from slipping forward, and bent her head back between his hands. Then
      suddenly he sprang up again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get up,&rdquo; he ordered her.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the tone she always heeded, but she cowered down in her seat,
      repeating vehemently: &ldquo;No, no, no!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get up!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to sit in front.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no! How can you steer in front?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't have to. We'll follow the track.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They spoke in smothered whispers, as though the night were listening.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get up! Get up!&rdquo; he urged her; but she kept on repeating: &ldquo;Why do you
      want to sit in front?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because I&mdash;because I want to feel you holding me,&rdquo; he stammered, and
      dragged her to her feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      The answer seemed to satisfy her, or else she yielded to the power of his
      voice. He bent down, feeling in the obscurity for the glassy slide worn by
      preceding coasters, and placed the runners carefully between its edges.
      She waited while he seated himself with crossed legs in the front of the
      sled; then she crouched quickly down at his back and clasped her arms
      about him. Her breath in his neck set him shuddering again, and he almost
      sprang from his seat. But in a flash he remembered the alternative. She
      was right: this was better than parting. He leaned back and drew her mouth
      to his...
    </p>
    <p>
      Just as they started he heard the sorrel's whinny again, and the familiar
      wistful call, and all the confused images it brought with it, went with
      him down the first reach of the road. Half-way down there was a sudden
      drop, then a rise, and after that another long delirious descent. As they
      took wing for this it seemed to him that they were flying indeed, flying
      far up into the cloudy night, with Starkfield immeasurably below them,
      falling away like a speck in space... Then the big elm shot up ahead,
      lying in wait for them at the bend of the road, and he said between his
      teeth: &ldquo;We can fetch it; I know we can fetch it&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As they flew toward the tree Mattie pressed her arms tighter, and her
      blood seemed to be in his veins. Once or twice the sled swerved a little
      under them. He slanted his body to keep it headed for the elm, repeating
      to himself again and again: &ldquo;I know we can fetch it&rdquo;; and little phrases
      she had spoken ran through his head and danced before him on the air. The
      big tree loomed bigger and closer, and as they bore down on it he thought:
      &ldquo;It's waiting for us: it seems to know.&rdquo; But suddenly his wife's face,
      with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between him and his goal,
      and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside. The sled swerved in
      response, but he righted it again, kept it straight, and drove down on the
      black projecting mass. There was a last instant when the air shot past him
      like millions of fiery wires; and then the elm...
    </p>
    <p>
      The sky was still thick, but looking straight up he saw a single star, and
      tried vaguely to reckon whether it were Sirius, or&mdash;or&mdash;The
      effort tired him too much, and he closed his heavy lids and thought that
      he would sleep... The stillness was so profound that he heard a little
      animal twittering somewhere near by under the snow. It made a small
      frightened cheep like a field mouse, and he wondered languidly if it were
      hurt. Then he understood that it must be in pain: pain so excruciating
      that he seemed, mysteriously, to feel it shooting through his own body. He
      tried in vain to roll over in the direction of the sound, and stretched
      his left arm out across the snow. And now it was as though he felt rather
      than heard the twittering; it seemed to be under his palm, which rested on
      something soft and springy. The thought of the animal's suffering was
      intolerable to him and he struggled to raise himself, and could not
      because a rock, or some huge mass, seemed to be lying on him. But he
      continued to finger about cautiously with his left hand, thinking he might
      get hold of the little creature and help it; and all at once he knew that
      the soft thing he had touched was Mattie's hair and that his hand was on
      her face.
    </p>
    <p>
      He dragged himself to his knees, the monstrous load on him moving with him
      as he moved, and his hand went over and over her face, and he felt that
      the twittering came from her lips...
    </p>
    <p>
      He got his face down close to hers, with his ear to her mouth, and in the
      darkness he saw her eyes open and heard her say his name.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Matt, I thought we'd fetched it,&rdquo; he moaned; and far off, up the
      hill, he heard the sorrel whinny, and thought: &ldquo;I ought to be getting him
      his feed...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      THE QUERULOUS DRONE ceased as I entered Frome's kitchen, and of the two
      women sitting there I could not tell which had been the speaker.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of them, on my appearing, raised her tall bony figure from her seat,
      not as if to welcome me&mdash;for she threw me no more than a brief glance
      of surprise&mdash;but simply to set about preparing the meal which Frome's
      absence had delayed. A slatternly calico wrapper hung from her shoulders
      and the wisps of her thin grey hair were drawn away from a high forehead
      and fastened at the back by a broken comb. She had pale opaque eyes which
      revealed nothing and reflected nothing, and her narrow lips were of the
      same sallow colour as her face.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other woman was much smaller and slighter. She sat huddled in an
      arm-chair near the stove, and when I came in she turned her head quickly
      toward me, without the least corresponding movement of her body. Her hair
      was as grey as her companion's, her face as bloodless and shrivelled, but
      amber-tinted, with swarthy shadows sharpening the nose and hollowing the
      temples. Under her shapeless dress her body kept its limp immobility, and
      her dark eyes had the bright witch-like stare that disease of the spine
      sometimes gives.
    </p>
    <p>
      Even for that part of the country the kitchen was a poor-looking place.
      With the exception of the dark-eyed woman's chair, which looked like a
      soiled relic of luxury bought at a country auction, the furniture was of
      the roughest kind. Three coarse china plates and a broken-nosed milk-jug
      had been set on a greasy table scored with knife-cuts, and a couple of
      straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine stood
      meagrely against the plaster walls.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My, it's cold here! The fire must be 'most out,&rdquo; Frome said, glancing
      about him apologetically as he followed me in.
    </p>
    <p>
      The tall woman, who had moved away from us toward the dresser, took no
      notice; but the other, from her cushioned niche, answered complainingly,
      in a high thin voice. &ldquo;It's on'y just been made up this very minute. Zeena
      fell asleep and slep' ever so long, and I thought I'd be frozen stiff
      before I could wake her up and get her to 'tend to it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I knew then that it was she who had been speaking when we entered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her companion, who was just coming back to the table with the remains of a
      cold mince-pie in a battered pie-dish, set down her unappetising burden
      without appearing to hear the accusation brought against her.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frome stood hesitatingly before her as she advanced; then he looked at me
      and said: &ldquo;This is my wife, Mis' Frome.&rdquo; After another interval he added,
      turning toward the figure in the arm-chair: &ldquo;And this is Miss Mattie
      Silver...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Mrs. Hale, tender soul, had pictured me as lost in the Flats and buried
      under a snow-drift; and so lively was her satisfaction on seeing me safely
      restored to her the next morning that I felt my peril had caused me to
      advance several degrees in her favour.
    </p>
    <p>
      Great was her amazement, and that of old Mrs. Varnum, on learning that
      Ethan Frome's old horse had carried me to and from Corbury Junction
      through the worst blizzard of the winter; greater still their surprise
      when they heard that his master had taken me in for the night.
    </p>
    <p>
      Beneath their wondering exclamations I felt a secret curiosity to know
      what impressions I had received from my night in the Frome household, and
      divined that the best way of breaking down their reserve was to let them
      try to penetrate mine. I therefore confined myself to saying, in a
      matter-of-fact tone, that I had been received with great kindness, and
      that Frome had made a bed for me in a room on the ground-floor which
      seemed in happier days to have been fitted up as a kind of writing-room or
      study.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Mrs. Hale mused, &ldquo;in such a storm I suppose he felt he couldn't do
      less than take you in&mdash;but I guess it went hard with Ethan. I don't
      believe but what you're the only stranger has set foot in that house for
      over twenty years. He's that proud he don't even like his oldest friends
      to go there; and I don't know as any do, any more, except myself and the
      doctor...&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You still go there, Mrs. Hale?&rdquo; I ventured.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I used to go a good deal after the accident, when I was first married;
      but after awhile I got to think it made 'em feel worse to see us. And then
      one thing and another came, and my own troubles... But I generally make
      out to drive over there round about New Year's, and once in the summer.
      Only I always try to pick a day when Ethan's off somewheres. It's bad
      enough to see the two women sitting there&mdash;but his face, when he
      looks round that bare place, just kills me... You see, I can look back and
      call it up in his mother's day, before their troubles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Old Mrs. Varnum, by this time, had gone up to bed, and her daughter and I
      were sitting alone, after supper, in the austere seclusion of the
      horse-hair parlour. Mrs. Hale glanced at me tentatively, as though trying
      to see how much footing my conjectures gave her; and I guessed that if she
      had kept silence till now it was because she had been waiting, through all
      the years, for some one who should see what she alone had seen.
    </p>
    <p>
      I waited to let her trust in me gather strength before I said: &ldquo;Yes, it's
      pretty bad, seeing all three of them there together.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She drew her mild brows into a frown of pain. &ldquo;It was just awful from the
      beginning. I was here in the house when they were carried up&mdash;they
      laid Mattie Silver in the room you're in. She and I were great friends,
      and she was to have been my bridesmaid in the spring... When she came to I
      went up to her and stayed all night. They gave her things to quiet her,
      and she didn't know much till to'rd morning, and then all of a sudden she
      woke up just like herself, and looked straight at me out of her big eyes,
      and said... Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you all this,&rdquo; Mrs. Hale
      broke off, crying.
    </p>
    <p>
      She took off her spectacles, wiped the moisture from them, and put them on
      again with an unsteady hand. &ldquo;It got about the next day,&rdquo; she went on,
      &ldquo;that Zeena Frome had sent Mattie off in a hurry because she had a hired
      girl coming, and the folks here could never rightly tell what she and
      Ethan were doing that night coasting, when they'd ought to have been on
      their way to the Flats to ketch the train... I never knew myself what
      Zeena thought&mdash;I don't to this day. Nobody knows Zeena's thoughts.
      Anyhow, when she heard o' the accident she came right in and stayed with
      Ethan over to the minister's, where they'd carried him. And as soon as the
      doctors said that Mattie could be moved, Zeena sent for her and took her
      back to the farm.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And there she's been ever since?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Hale answered simply: &ldquo;There was nowhere else for her to go;&rdquo; and my
      heart tightened at the thought of the hard compulsions of the poor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, there she's been,&rdquo; Mrs. Hale continued, &ldquo;and Zeena's done for her,
      and done for Ethan, as good as she could. It was a miracle, considering
      how sick she was&mdash;but she seemed to be raised right up just when the
      call came to her. Not as she's ever given up doctoring, and she's had sick
      spells right along; but she's had the strength given her to care for those
      two for over twenty years, and before the accident came she thought she
      couldn't even care for herself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Hale paused a moment, and I remained silent, plunged in the vision of
      what her words evoked. &ldquo;It's horrible for them all,&rdquo; I murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes: it's pretty bad. And they ain't any of 'em easy people either.
      Mattie was, before the accident; I never knew a sweeter nature. But she's
      suffered too much&mdash;that's what I always say when folks tell me how
      she's soured. And Zeena, she was always cranky. Not but what she bears
      with Mattie wonderful&mdash;I've seen that myself. But sometimes the two
      of them get going at each other, and then Ethan's face'd break your
      heart... When I see that, I think it's him that suffers most... anyhow it
      ain't Zeena, because she ain't got the time... It's a pity, though,&rdquo; Mrs.
      Hale ended, sighing, &ldquo;that they're all shut up there'n that one kitchen.
      In the summertime, on pleasant days, they move Mattie into the parlour, or
      out in the door-yard, and that makes it easier... but winters there's the
      fires to be thought of; and there ain't a dime to spare up at the
      Fromes.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Hale drew a deep breath, as though her memory were eased of its long
      burden, and she had no more to say; but suddenly an impulse of complete
      avowal seized her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She took off her spectacles again, leaned toward me across the bead-work
      table-cover, and went on with lowered voice: &ldquo;There was one day, about a
      week after the accident, when they all thought Mattie couldn't live. Well,
      I say it's a pity she did. I said it right out to our minister once, and
      he was shocked at me. Only he wasn't with me that morning when she first
      came to... And I say, if she'd ha' died, Ethan might ha' lived; and the
      way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes
      up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; 'cept that down there
      they're all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues.&rdquo;
     </p>

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