There was no faintest tremor of bitterness or gibing in this. It was the simplest statement of facts. Tenney had stood perfectly still, but now he lifted one hand and looked at it casually, as he had that other time. He made an uncertain step, as if to pass her and enter the house, but Tira stretched out her arms. They barred the way. "No," she said, "you ain't comin' in." "Ain't comin' in?" repeated Tenney. He looked up at her, but his glance fell at once to the trembling hand. "No," said Tira, "you ain't comin' into this house ag'in till he's carried out of it. I've made you up a bed in the lower barn an' I've set you out suthin' to eat there. Day after to-morrer mornin' the doctor's comin' over after me an' baby--or send somebody, if he can't come--an' he's goin' to see to the minister an' all. He was terrible sorry for me. An' that night, day after to-morrer night, you can come back into the house; but you can't come before." She went in and shut the door behind her, and Tenney heard the key turn sharply in the lock. He stood there several minutes, moistening his dry lips and looking down at his hands, and then he, too, turned about and went down to the lower barn, where he found a bed made up and a cold lunch on a little table. But while he ate he wondered, in an absent muse, about the bed. It was the old four-poster he had packed away in the shed chamber. How had she carried the heavy hardwood pieces down, fitted them together and corded them? He was curious enough to lift the tick to find out what she had used for cord. Her new clothes-line; and there was the bed wrench in the corner by the chopping block. It looked as if, having done with it, she had thrown it there in a wild haste to get on with these things that must be done before he came. Even then, with his mind on his hands--not hands, it seemed to him, he could quite bear to touch food with--he wondered if some man had helped her. Had Martin been here again, or was it Raven? But, after all, nothing seemed to matter: only the queer state of his hands. That was the trouble now. All through the next day he hung about the place, doing the barn work, milking, taking the milk to the house, but stopping there, for Tira met him at the door, took the pails from him, and carried them in without a word. He wondered vaguely whether, having denied him entrance to his own house, she meant to refuse him food also, but presently she appeared with a tray: meat and vegetables carefully arranged and the coffee he depended on. Then she pointed out a wooden box, a little chest that had lived up in the shed chamber, lifted the lid and bade him note the folded garments within: he must change to-morrow, and these were his clean clothes. Occasionally he glanced at her, but he could not see that she looked very different. She was always pale. Early in the morning of the third day she appeared with hot water and a basket filled with what seemed to him at first a queer assortment of odds and ends.