"Somehow I can't exactly believe it." Tilly twisted a lock of his hair between her slow, reluctant fingers. "You seem changed, a little, anyway, and I think we ought to come to a thorough understanding right now. You have an imagination, Joel. You used to write poetry to me, you remember, and for all I know you may now be fancying all sorts of really absurd things. Now be sensible. John and I _did_ love each other away back there, but we were parted and for years I have thought of him as dead. But now he is away off up there, and I am here with you and our darling children. You love them, they love you--and--and you love me, and I--love you. Now be sensible. Can you, even with a crazy flight of your imagination, fancy that John and I ever again will or could be--be like we once were? Throw the idea away if you have it. Of course, I must be happy in discovering that my hasty desertion back there did not cost him his life and Dora's. Oh, that thought worried me! I never let you know how much it worried me! I guess I would have married you much sooner than I did if I had not had that on my mind. But all that is past and gone now. I'm here and John is away off up there. Your idea that he still loves me is ridiculous on the face of it. What was I, even when he was here? Only an ignorant country girl, while he has no doubt grown and learned and altered in a thousand ways. I've seen successful men from big cities. They don't seem to think as we do, or act or speak like us. I'd be a silly dowdy to such a man. I think, of course, if it comes about naturally, that his mother ought to go to him, but I don't think he ever ought to--to come back here, and I am sure that he won't. I am sure of that--I'm sure of it. He has been burnt once, as the saying is, and that will be enough. But I predict that she will go to him. No, I'll take that back. I said that, but I am not sure. Do you know, it is God's truth, Joel, that the sweet old soul loves you and me and the children so much now that she would not leave us even--even for John. She let that out this afternoon while Tilly was sleeping in her lap. The very thought of going started her to crying, and it was some time before I got her quiet." Tilly's hand actually touched his neck, but Joel still felt that he had no right to clasp it. The wild thought of grasping it and drawing his wife's lips down to his possessed him, but he promptly killed the impulse. Grimly he told himself that he would be fondling a shadow, feasting on a husk. Suddenly she drew her hand away. "I'm awfully tired to-night," she sighed. "I'll go to bed, but you needn't hurry. Shall I fill your pipe?" "No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't smoke any more to-night." "Well, good night," she said. "Good night," he echoed.