From that high
and silent spot he could see the long white road up from the settlement
on one side and down to the covered bridge on the other side.
He sat under the pine-tree, his scythe against the stone wall
behind him, his clinched hands between his knees. Sitting thus,
he watched the road and the slow crawl of the shaky old carriage.
. . . After it had passed the burying-ground and was out of sight,
he hid his face in his bent elbow.
It was some ten years afterward that word came to Eldress Hannah
that Athalia Hall was dying and wanted to see her husband;
would he come to her?
"Will you go, Brother Lewis?" Eldress asked him, doubtfully.
"Yee, if you think best," he said.
"I do think best," the old woman said.
He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his
wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of
the city where Athalia had elected to dwell. He found her
in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life.
He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked
at her with mild, remote eyes.
"Do you forgive me, Lewis?" she said.
"I have nothing to forgive, sister," he told her.
"Don't call me that!" she cried, with feeble passion.
He looked a little bewildered. "Yee," he said, "I forgive you."
"Oh, Lewis!--Lewis!--Lewis!" she mourned; "this is what I have done!"
She wept pitifully. His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did
not quite understand. . . .
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