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 He was silent. In that world she had left an apology was accepted, on the surface at least. Rancor and discord might remain, but they were glossed over. She felt helpless and defeated.

"What more can I say?" she asked desperately. "I can't go on fighting you, Tom. You're stronger than I am."

He gave a short bitter laugh.

"Me? Why, I'm a cripple! A child could knock me down and tramp on me!" Then, more gently, "You go back to the house, Kay. Don't you worry about me. I'm doing fine."

After that for some days they lived a curious sort of life. He came in for food, short constrained meals quickly over; he carried the water, chopped the wood for the stove, but he continued to sleep in the barn. Once again it was childish, absurd. But Kay began to wonder if something else did not lie behind his sense of injury; if this girl, this Clare, had not said something that had devastated his fierce pride, if she had not sown some seed of suspicion or distrust over which he was brooding. And in this she was correct. Out of all the hysterical reproaches of that unlucky afternoon, Tom had retained only one speech of hers, but that had stayed in his mind.

"I've watched her, Tom darling. You go in now and look at her. She thinks she's too good for this earth. She won't even speak to the folks around her. She acts as if they'd poison her if they touched her. And if she's too good for them she's too good for you. She'll leave you. She's sorry now. I used to see her from Dicer's crying her eyes out."

She believed it. There was sincerity in her red-rimmed eyes, in her weak quivering chin. And because she voiced his own fears they became fact to him.

"I've got to get back," he said morosely.

Her face hardened, her eyes narrowed.

"And there's something else," she said, her voice shrill. "She saw you in the show, and it carried her away. But it's different now. You're lame. I'll bet she hates that. It makes a difference, and don't you forget it."