He shook his head impatiently and her hand fell from his sleeve.
It occurred to him all at once, with an aggrieved irritation,
that of late his family had failed him in sympathy--that they had
ceased to value the daily sacrifices he made. Almost with horror
he found himself asking the next instant whether the simple bond
of blood was worth all that he had given--worth his youth, his
manhood, his ambition? Until this moment his course had seemed to
him the one inevitable outcome of circumstances--the one
appointed path for him to tread; but even as he put the question
he saw in a sudden illumination that there might have been
another way--that with the burden of the three women removed he
might have struck out into the world and at least have kept his
own head above water. With his next breath the horror of his
thought held him speechless, and he turned away lest Cynthia
should read his degradation in his eyes.

"Happened! Why, what should have happened?" he inquired with
attempted lightness. "Good Lord! After a day's work like mine you
can hardly expect me to dance a hornpipe. Since sunrise I've done
a turn at fall ploughing, felled and chopped a tree, mended the
pasture fence, brought the water for the washing, tied up some
tobacco leaves, and looked after the cattle and the horses--and
now you find fault because I haven't cut any extra capers!"

"Not find fault, dear," she answered, and the hopeless courage in
her face smote him to the heart. In a bitter revulsion of feeling
he felt that he could not endure her suffering tenderness.

"Find fault with you! Oh, Christopher! It is only that you have
been so different of late, so brooding, and you seem to avoid us