She had not moved, but, somehow, as she stood there against the
unvarnished door facing him, fists at her side, eyes brilliant, she
appeared to tower over him.
"I'll stay," she was saying in a queer, fierce monotone, "I'll stay here
this winter anyhow if I freeze for it! I'll scrub and cook and haul wood
for ye till I've paid ye back--_paid ye_," she repeated more softly,
"till no one can say the Perkinses don't keep their word! And then--in
the spring--I'm going--it'll be for good--. _For always_," she added,
and turned limply towards the door.
To my surprise he sank heavily into the rickety chair by the stove.
"Go then," he muttered. "It's all I c'ld expect."
The door closed on her and still he sat there before the fire, head bent
forward, as though he had an audience. I shrank back closer into the
shadows, drawing my coat collar more snugly about my throat. It was
incredible that he should play a part before her--and now alone! His
very posture suggested a martyred, deserted old man. I felt myself in
the presence of something inexplicable.--Then, in a frenzy of suppressed
rancor, such as I had never felt before, I climbed the hill, the lumps
of mud and ice seeming to cling against my footsteps as I went.
* * * * *
The winter was a bitter one that year, such as only the winters in that
Northern, prostrate land can be.
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