Fanny stood at the foot of the wide flight of stairs like a criminal at the bar. As Seth's words grew more biting, his judgments more cruel, Fanny's face flushed with shame, then faded white with pain. But Seth went too far. He went so far that he couldn't stop himself. And the crowd who had gathered to hear a little harmless fun now stood petrified and heartsick. No one stirred, though everybody was wishing themselves miles away. And Seth's voice, dripping with cruelty, went on. Then all at once from the heart of the crowd a little figure pushed its way. It was Seth's wife, Ruth. She walked halfway up that flight of stairs and looked steadily at her husband. Seth stopped in the middle of a word. "Seth Curtis," Ruth's face was as white as Fanny's and her voice rang out like a silver bell, "Seth Curtis, you will apologize, ask forgiveness of Fanny Foster, who is my friend and an old schoolmate, or before God and these people I will disown you as my husband and the father of my children. Fanny Foster never had an apple or a goody in her lunch in the old school days that she didn't share it with somebody. She has never had a dollar or a joy that she hasn't divided. No one in Green Valley ever had a pain or a sorrow that she did not make it hers and try to help in some way. And in all the world there can be no more willing hands than hers." The silver voice stopped, choked with sobs, and Ruth's eyes, looking down on the shrunken, bowed figure of Green Valley's gossip, brimmed over with tears. Seth, sober now, stared at his wife, at the broken, crushed Fanny, at the crowd that stood waiting in still misery. Ruth walked down to Fanny and flung her arms about her. Fanny patted her friend's shoulder softly and tried to comfort not herself but Ruth. "There, there, Ruthie, don't, don't take on so. Remember, you're nursing a baby and it might make him sick. It's all right, everything's all right. Only," Fanny's voice was dull and colorless and she never once raised her head, "only I wish John wouldn't hear of this. I've been such a disappointment to John without--this." Though she spoke only to Ruth everybody heard. It was the first and only favor Fanny Foster had ever asked of Green Valley. And Green Valley, as it watched Ruth lead her away, swore that if possible John should not hear. But John did hear three days later. And then the quiet man whose patience had made people think him a fool let loose the stored-up bitterness of years. He who in the beginning should and could have saved his girl wife with love and firmness now judged and rejected her with the terrible wrath, the cold merciless justice of a man slow to anger or to judge.