"I'll go with you to the road if you want to see if he's there," Joe offered. Ollie's fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood had divested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke to her now as he would have reasoned with a child. "No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or something like that, and he went away," said she. "You couldn't scare him, he wouldn't run from you. Tomorrow he'll send me word, and I'll go to him in spite of you and Isom and everything else. I don't care--I don't care--you're mean to me, too! you're as mean as you can be!" She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her arm to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend of her elbow. Her shoulders heaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury which she seemed to think she bore. Joe put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't take on that way about it, Ollie," said he. "Oh, oh!" she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now; "why couldn't you have been kind to me; why couldn't you have said a good word to me sometimes? I didn't have a friend in the world, and I was so lonesome and tired and--and--and--everything!" Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How could he tell her that he had not understood her striving and yearning to reach him, and that at last understanding, he had been appalled by the enormity of his own heart's desire. He said nothing for a little while, but took her by one tear-wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the table he stopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with comforting touch. "Never mind, Ollie," said he at last; "you go to bed now and don't think any more about going away with Morgan. If I thought it was best for your peace and happiness for you to go, I'd step out of the way at once. But he'd drag you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for they don't have that kind of women here. Morgan isn't as good a man as Isom is, with all his hard ways and stinginess. If he's honest and honorable, he can wait for you till Isom dies. He'll not last more than ten or fifteen years longer, and you'll be young even then, Ollie. I don't suppose anybody ever gets too old to be happy any more than they get too old to be sad." "No, I don't suppose they do, Joe," she sighed. She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder after a storm. "I'll put out the light, Ollie," said he. "You go on to bed." "Oh, Joe, Joe!" said she in a little pleading, meaningless way; a little way of reproach and softness.