In spite of herself, Callista felt comforted. She reached up and gathered her hair together, wringing the rain from it and redding it with the great shell comb which always held its abundant coils in place. She could not in reason tell Flenton to leave her--she needed him too much. When they turned in at the ill-kept lane which led to Lance's cabin. Lance's wife caught her breath [204] a little, but said nothing. Flenton lifted her gently down at her own door-stone, and, opening the door for her, followed her in and, with a match from his pocket, lit a candle. He looked at the cold ash-heap on the fireless hearth, whistled a bit, and went out. She heard him striking matches somewhere about the wood-pile, and directly after came the sound of an axe. It was not long before he returned, his arms piled high with such bits of dry wood as he could find, split to kindling size. "It looks like it's a shame for me to have you waitin' on me this-a-way," Callista began half-heartedly. She had taken counsel with herself, during his absence, and resolved to make some effort to keep up appearances. "Hit don't look like anything of the sort," protested Flenton Hands. "You needed me, and that's all I want to know." He had laid his fire skilfully, and now the blaze began to roar up the big chimney. "My feet ain't been warm this whole blessed day," Callista said, almost involuntarily, as she drew nearer the fascinating source of both warmth and light. "My, but that does feel good!" "You pore child!" Flent muttered huskily, turning toward her from the hearth where he knelt. "You're e'en about perished." He went out then, only to come hurriedly back, reporting, [205] "I cain't find any wood--whar does Lance keep it?" Lance's wife hung her head, lips pressed tight together, striving for resolution to answer this with a smooth lie. "He don't go off and leave you in this kind of weather without any wood?" inquired Hands hoarsely. "Yes--he does," Callista choked. And, having opened the bottle a bit, out poured the hot wine of her wrath. All the things that she might have said to her mother had she been on good terms with that lady; the taunts that occurred to her in Lance's absence and which she failed to utter to him when he came; these rushed pell-mell into speech. She was white and shaking when she made an end. "There," she said tragically, getting to her feet. "I reckon I had no business to name one word of this to you, Flenton; but I'm the most miserable creature that ever lived, I do think; and I ain't got a soul on this earth that cares whether or not about me. And--and--" She broke off, locking her hands tightly and staring down at them. Flenton had the sense and the self-control not to approach her, not to introduce too promptly the personal note.