"And the doctor don't want I should be left without anybody," Zeena
continued. "He wanted I should speak to you about a girl he's heard
about, that might come-"

Ethan laid down the razor and straightened himself with a laugh.

"Denis Eady! If that's all, I guess there's no such hurry to look
round for a girl."

"Well, I'd like to talk to you about it," said Zeena obstinately.

He was getting into his clothes in fumbling haste. "All right. But I
haven't got the time now; I'm late as it is," he returned, holding
his old silver turnip-watch to the candle.

Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in
silence while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked
his arms into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said,
suddenly and incisively: "I guess you're always late, now you shave
every morning."

That thrust had frightened him more than any vague insinuations
about Denis Eady. It was a fact that since Mattie Silver's coming he
had taken to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be
asleep when he left her side in the winter darkness, and he had
stupidly assumed that she would not notice any change in his
appearance. Once or twice in the past he had been faintly disquieted
by Zenobia's way of letting things happen without seeming to remark
them, and then, weeks afterward, in a casual phrase, revealing that
she had all along taken her notes and drawn her inferences. Of late,