Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/42

 she would not notice him at all, for she was endlessly busy, and then she would come upon him suddenly sitting on a log or emerging from the forest with a queer dazed look in his eyes, and she would say, "Come, Philip, you're tired. We'll pray together."

Prayer, she was certain, would help him.

Once, when she found him lying face down on the earth, she had touched his head with her hand, only to have him spring up crying out, "For God's sake, leave me in peace!" in a voice so terrible that she had gone away again.

The look came more and more often into his eyes. She watched him for days and at last she said, "Philip, you ought to go down to the coast. If you stay on you'll be having the fever."

She was plaiting grass at the moment to make a hat for herself. Standing above her, he looked down, wondering at her contentment.

"But you'll go too?" he asked.

"No . . . I couldn't do that, Philip . . . not just now—in the very midst of our work, at a time like this, Swanson couldn't manage alone and we'd lose all we'd gained. I'm strong enough, but you must go."

"I won't go . . . alone."

She went on plaiting without answering him, and he said at last, "It doesn't make any difference. I'm no good here. I'm only a failure. I'm better off dead."

She still did not cease her plaiting.

"That's cowardly, Philip, and wicked. God hears what you say."

He turned away dully. "I'd go to the coast if you'd go."

"I can't go, Philip. . . . God means us to stay." 