"I shall be along with my wagons in two weeks or a little more. If you
will go with me then I would like to have you. Here, here is money to
buy you food until I come."

"You've heard about me, have you--that I'm a divorced woman?"

"Yes, I know."

She looked down at the ground a moment, pondering, then up at him with
sudden resolution.

"I can't work hard and--I'm not--pretty any longer--why do you want to
marry me?"

Her question made him the more embarrassed of the two, and she saw as
much, but she could not tell why it was.

"Why," he stammered, "why,--you see--but never mind. I must hurry on
now. In about two weeks--" And he put the spurs so viciously to his
horse that he was nearly unseated by the startled animal's leap.

Off on the open road again he thought it out. Marriage had not been in
his mind when he spoke to the woman. He had meant only to give her a
home. But to her the idea had come naturally from his words, and he
began to see that it was, indeed, not an unnatural thing to do. He dwelt
long on this new idea, picturing at intervals the woman's lack of any
charm or beauty, her painful emaciation, her weakness.

Passing through another village later in the day, he saw the youth who
had been so unfortunate as to love this girl in defiance of his Bishop.