Ollie retreated a few steps toward the inner door, and stopped. Joe could hear her excited breathing as he flung his hat on the table. "Ollie, what I've got to say to you has to be said sooner or later tonight, and you'd just as well hear it now," said Joe, trying to assure her of his friendly intent by speaking softly, although his voice was tremulous. "Morgan's gone; he'll not be back--at least not tonight." "Morgan?" said she. "What do you mean--what do I care where he's gone?" Joe made no reply. He fumbled for the box behind the stove and scraped a slow sulphur match against the pipe. Its light discovered Ollie shrinking against the wall where she had stopped, near the door. She was wearing a straw hat, which must have been a part of her bridal gear. A long white veil, which she wore scarf-wise over the front display of its flowers and fruits, came down and crossed behind her neck. Its ends dangled upon her breast. The dress was one that Joe never had seen her wear before, a girlish white thing with narrow ruffles. He wondered as he looked at her with a great ache in his heart, how so much seeming purity could be so base and foul. In that bitter moment he cursed old Isom in his heart for goading her to this desperate bound. She had been starving for a man's love, and for the lack of it she had thrown herself away on a dog. Joe fitted the chimney on the burner of the lamp, and stood in judicial seriousness before her, the stub of the burning match wasting in a little blaze between his fingers. "Morgan's gone," he repeated, "and he'll never come back. I know all about you two, and what you'd planned to do." Joe dropped the stub of the match and set his foot on it. Ollie stared at him, her face as white as her bridal dress, her eyes big, like a barn-yard animal's eyes in a lantern's light. She was gathering and wadding the ends of her veil in her hands; her lips were open, showing the points of her small, white teeth. "Isom--he'll kill me!" she whispered. "Isom don't know about it," said Joe. "You'll tell him!" "No." Relief flickered in her face. She leaned forward a little, eagerly, as if to speak, but said nothing. Joe shrank back from her, his hand pressing heavily upon the table. "I never meant to tell him," said he slowly. She sprang toward him, her hands clasped appealingly. "Then you'll let me go, you'll let me go?" she cried eagerly. "I can't stay here," she hurried on, "you know I can't stay here, Joe, and suffer like he's made me suffer the past year! You say Morgan won't come----" "The coward, to try to steal a man's wife, and deceive you that way, too!" said Joe, his anger rising. "Oh, you don't know him as well as I do!" she defended, shaking her head solemnly. "He's so grand, and good, and I love him, Joe--oh, Joe, I love him!" "It's wrong for you to say that!" Joe harshly reproved her. "I don't want to hear you say that; you're Isom's wife." "Yes, God help me," said she.