"I've seen the same thing, child, over and over again. Two people'll start out together, and after a while they'll git separated, or, maybe, they'll live together a lifetime, and when they git to the end o' fifteen or twenty or twenty-five years, one'll be jest where he was when they set out, and the other'll be 'way up and 'way on, and they're jest nothin' but strangers after all. That's the way it was with Milly and Dick. They'd been sweethearts, and there was the child; but the father'd gone his way and the mother'd gone hers, and now there was somethin' between 'em like that 'great gulf' the Bible tells about. Well, they said Dick looked up at Milly like a hungry man looks at bread, and at last he says: "'I'm goin' to make an honest woman of you, Milly.' "And Milly looked him in the eyes and said as gentle and easy as if she'd been talkin' to a sick child: 'I've always been an honest woman, Dick.' "This kind o' took him back again, but he says, right earnest and pitiful, 'I want to marry you, Milly; don't refuse me. I want to do one decent thing before I die. I've come all the way from California just for this. Surely you'll feel better if you are my lawful wife.' "And they said Milly thought a minute and then she says: 'I don't believe it makes any difference with me, Dick. I've been through the worst, and I'm used to it. But if it'll make it any easier for you, I'll marry you. And then there's my boy; maybe it will be better for him.' "'Where's the boy?' says Dick; 'I want to see him.' "So Milly went and called Richard in. And as soon as Dick saw him he raised up on his elbow, weak as he was, and hollered out so you could hear him in the next room. "'Why,' says he, 'it's myself! It's myself! Stand off there where I can see you, boy! Why, you're the man I ought to have been and couldn't be. These lyin' doctors,' says he, 'tell me that I haven't got a day to live, but I'm goin' to live another lifetime in you!' "And then he fell back, gaspin' for breath, and young Richard stood there in the middle o' the floor with his arms folded and his face lookin' like it was made of stone. "As soon as Dick could speak, they said he pulled Milly down and whispered something to her, and she went over to the chair where his clothes was hangin' and felt in the pocket of the vest and got a little pearl ring out. They said she shook like a leaf when she saw it. And Dick says: 'I took it away from you, Milly, twenty years ago, for fear you'd use it for evidence against me--scoundrel that I was; and now I'm goin' to put it on your finger again, and the parson shall marry us fair and square. I've got the license here under my pillow.' And Milly leaned over and lifted him and propped him up with the pillows, and the young parson said the ceremony over 'em, with Jane Ann and the old Squire for witnesses.