I'd give a good deal if I could undo it, but I
can't, so I've come to tell you how sorry I am."
"You've got something to be sorry for," said Mrs. Comstock, "but likely
we ain't thinking of the same thing. It hurts me less to know the truth,
than to live in ignorance. If Mag had the sense of a pewee, she'd told
me long ago. That's what hurts me, to think that both of you knew Robert
was not worth an hour of honest grief, yet you'd let me mourn him all
these years and neglect Elnora while I did it. If I have anything to
forgive you, that is what it is."
Wesley removed his hat and sat on a bench.
"Katharine," he said solemnly, "nobody ever knows how to take you."
"Would it be asking too much to take me for having a few grains of plain
common sense?" she inquired. "You've known all this time that Comstock
got what he deserved, when he undertook to sneak in an unused way across
a swamp, with which he was none too familiar. Now I should have thought
that you'd figure that knowing the same thing would be the best method
to cure me of pining for him, and slighting my child."
"Heaven only knows we have thought of that, and talked of it often, but
we were both too big cowards. We didn't dare tell you."
"So you have gone on year after year, watching me show indifference to
Elnora, and yet a little horse-sense would have pointed out to you that
she was my salvation. Why look at it! Not married quite a year.
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