Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/261

 "Don't let a soul in here, Nathaniel. I'll be gone in a few minutes. I don't want 'em to see"

The old man stepped to the door and locked it. As he came back, the sick woman motioned him to come closer. "Natty, I thought I could keep it, but I never did have a secret from you, and I can't die without telling you. If there is a heaven and hell Oh, Natty, I've done a wicked thing, and I'm dying without repenting. I'd do it again. That time you went to Mrs. Warner's with the pattern—this cold I got that day I went out" Her husband interrupted her. For the first time in years he did not call her "mother," but used the pet name of their courtship. The long years of their parenthood had vanished. They had gone back to the days when each had made up all the world to the other. "I know, Matey," he said. "I met young Warner out in the road and give the pattern to him, and I come right back, and see you sitting out there. I knew what 'twas for."

His wife stared at him, amazement silencing her.

"I thought it was the only thing left I could do for you, Matey, to let you stay there. You know I never wished for anything but that you should have what you wanted." He had spoken in a steady, even tone, which now broke into an irrepressible wail of selfish, human anguish. "But you leave me all alone, Matey! How can I get on without you! I thought I'd die myself as I sat inside the house watching you. You're all I ever had, Matey! All there has ever been in the world for me!"

The old woman stopped her gasping by a superhuman effort. "Why, Natty, I never supposed you thought so