The little
mirror on the tent-pole, hung too high for her own reflection, held a
darkling picture of a pine-bough against a patch of stars. She sat on the
edge of the cot and picked up a discarded necktie, sawing it across her
knee mechanically to free it from the dust. Her husband placed himself
beside her. His weight brought down the mattress and rocked her against his
shoulder; he put his arm around her, and she gave way to a little sob.
"When has he written to you?" she asked. "Since he went down?"
"I think so. Let me see! When did you hear last?"
"I have brought his last letter with me. I wondered if he had told you."
"I have heard nothing--nothing in particular. What is it?"
"The inevitable woman."
"She has come at last, has she? Come to stay?"
"He is engaged to her."
Mr. Thorne breathed his astonishment in a low whistle. "You don't like it?"
he surmised at once.
"Like it! If it were merely a question of liking! She is impossible. She
knows it, her people know it, and they have not told him. It remains"--
"What is the girl's name?"
"Henry, she is not a girl! That is, she is a girl forced into premature
womanhood, like all the fruits of this hotbed climate.
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