There was some hauling to be done at the lower end of the wood-lot, and
Ethan was out early the next day.

The winter morning was as clear as crystal. The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.

It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging
to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of
mountain air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking. He and Zeena had not
exchanged a word after the door of their room had closed on them. She
had measured out some drops from a medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed
and, after swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow
flannel, had lain down with her face turned away. Ethan undressed
hurriedly and blew out the light so that he should not see her when he
took his place at her side. As he lay there he could hear Mattie moving
about in her room, and her candle, sending its small ray across the
landing, drew a scarcely perceptible line of light under his door. He
kept his eyes fixed on the light till it vanished. Then the room grew
perfectly black, and not a sound was audible but Zeena's asthmatic
breathing. Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought
to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one
sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his. Why had
he not kissed her when he held her there? A few hours earlier he would
not have asked himself the question. Even a few minutes earlier, when
they had stood alone outside the house, he would not have dared to think
of kissing her. But since he had seen her lips in the lamplight he felt
that they were his.

Now, in the bright morning air, her face was still before him. It was
part of the sun's red and of the pure glitter on the snow. How the
girl had changed since she had come to Starkfield! He remembered what a
colourless slip of a thing she had looked the day he had met her at the
station. And all the first winter, how she had shivered with cold when
the northerly gales shook the thin clapboards and the snow beat like
hail against the loose-hung windows!

He had been afraid that she would hate the hard life, the cold and
loneliness; but not a sign of discontent escaped her. Zeena took the
view that Mattie was bound to make the best of Starkfield since she
hadn't any other place to go to; but this did not strike Ethan as
conclusive. Zeena, at any rate, did not apply the principle in her own
case.

He felt all the more sorry for the girl because misfortune had, in
a sense, indentured her to them. Mattie Silver was the daughter of
a cousin of Zenobia Frome's, who had inflamed his clan with mingled
sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to
Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to
her father's thriving "drug" business. Unhappily Orin Silver, a man of
far-reaching aims, had died too soon to prove that the end justifies the
means. His accounts revealed merely what the means had been; and these
were such that it was fortunate for his wife and daughter that his books
were examined only after his impressive funeral. His wife died of the
disclosure, and Mattie, at twenty, was left alone to make her way on the
fifty dollars obtained from the sale of her piano. For this purpose her
equipment, though varied, was inadequate. She could trim a hat, make
molasses candy, recite "Curfew shall not ring to-night," and play "The
Lost Chord" and a pot-pourri from "Carmen." When she tried to extend the
field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping
her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of
a department store did not tend to restore it. Her nearest relations had
been induced to place their savings in her father's hands, and though,
after his death, they ungrudgingly acquitted themselves of the Christian
duty of returning good for evil by giving his daughter all the advice
at their disposal, they could hardly be expected to supplement it by
material aid. But when Zenobia's doctor recommended her looking about
for some one to help her with the house-work the clan instantly saw the
chance of exacting a compensation from Mattie. Zenobia, though doubtful
of the girl's efficiency, was tempted by the freedom to find fault
without much risk of losing her; and so Mattie came to Starkfield.

Zenobia's fault-finding was of the silent kind, but not the less
penetrating for that. During the first months Ethan alternately burned
with the desire to see Mattie defy her and trembled with fear of the
result. Then the situation grew less strained. The pure air, and the
long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie,
and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew
less watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on
under the burden of his barren farm and failing saw-mill, could at least
imagine that peace reigned in his house.

There was really, even now, no tangible evidence to the contrary; but
since the previous night a vague dread had hung on his sky-line. It was
formed of Zeena's obstinate silence, of Mattie's sudden look of warning,
of the memory of just such fleeting imperceptible signs as those which
told him, on certain stainless mornings, that before night there would
be rain.

His dread was so strong that, man-like, he sought to postpone certainty.
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself. He had scrambled
up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy
grays, when, coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a
vision of the warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.

"If there's going to be any trouble I want to be there," was his vague
reflection, as he threw to Jotham the unexpected order to unhitch the
team and lead them back to the barn.

It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields, and when the two
men entered the kitchen Mattie was lifting the coffee from the stove and
Zeena was already at the table. Her husband stopped short at sight of
her. Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium. On the floor
beside her stood his old valise and a bandbox wrapped in newspapers.

"Why, where are you going, Zeena?" he exclaimed.

"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.

In spite of her sedentary habits such abrupt decisions were not without
precedent in Zeena's history. Twice or thrice before she had suddenly
packed Ethan's valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or even
Springfield, to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her husband had
grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost. Zeena always
came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last visit to
Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty dollars for an
electric battery of which she had never been able to learn the use. But
for the moment his sense of relief was so great as to preclude all other
feelings. He had now no doubt that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying,
the night before, that she had sat up because she felt "too mean" to
sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual,
she was wholly absorbed in her health.

As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively; "If you're too
busy with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me over
with the sorrel in time to ketch the train at the Flats."

Her husband hardly heard what she was saying. During the winter months
there was no stage between Starkfield and Bettsbridge, and the trains
which stopped at Corbury Flats were slow and infrequent. A rapid
calculation showed Ethan that Zeena could not be back at the farm before
the following evening....

"If I'd supposed you'd 'a' made any objection to Jotham Powell's driving
me over--" she began again, as though his silence had implied refusal. On
the brink of departure she was always seized with a flux of words. "All
I know is," she continued, "I can't go on the way I am much longer.
The pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or I'd 'a' walked in to
Starkfield on my own feet, sooner'n put you out, and asked Michael Eady
to let me ride over on his wagon to the Flats, when he sends to meet the
train that brings his groceries. I'd 'a' had two hours to wait in the
station, but I'd sooner 'a' done it, even with this cold, than to have
you say--"

"Of course Jotham'll drive you over," Ethan roused himself to answer.
He became suddenly conscious that he was looking at Mattie while Zeena
talked to him, and with an effort he turned his eyes to his wife. She
sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of
snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened
the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous
lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth. Though she was but
seven years her husband's senior, and he was only twenty-eight, she was
already an old woman.

Ethan tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was only
one thought in his mind: the fact that, for the first time since
Mattie had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a night. He
wondered if the girl were thinking of it too....

He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive her
to the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to Starkfield, and
at first he could not think of a pretext for not doing so; then he said:
"I'd take you over myself, only I've got to collect the cash for the
lumber."

As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because
they were untrue--there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment
from Hale--but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of
letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic
excursions. At the moment, however, his one desire was to avoid the long
drive with her behind the ancient sorrel who never went out of a walk.

Zeena made no reply: she did not seem to hear what he had said. She had
already pushed her plate aside, and was measuring out a draught from a
large bottle at her elbow.

"It ain't done me a speck of good, but I guess I might as well use it
up," she remarked; adding, as she pushed the empty bottle toward Mattie:
"If you can get the taste out it'll do for pickles."

As soon as his wife had driven off Ethan took his coat and cap from the
peg. Mattie was washing up the dishes, humming one of the dance tunes
of the night before. He said "So long, Matt," and she answered gaily "So
long, Ethan"; and that was all.

It was warm and bright in the kitchen. The sun slanted through the south
window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on
the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted
them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie. He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.

All the way down to the village he continued to think of his return to
Mattie. The kitchen was a poor place, not "spruce" and shining as his
mother had kept it in his boyhood; but it was surprising what a homelike
look the mere fact of Zeena's absence gave it. And he pictured what it
would be like that evening, when he and Mattie were there after supper.
For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would
sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in
his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that
funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never
heard her before.

The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears
of "trouble" with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush,
and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he
drove through the snowy fields. There was in him a slumbering spark of
sociability which the long Starkfield winters had not yet extinguished.
By nature grave and inarticulate, he admired recklessness and gaiety in
others and was warmed to the marrow by friendly human intercourse. At
Worcester, though he had the name of keeping to himself and not being
much of a hand at a good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped
on the back and hailed as "Old Ethe" or "Old Stiff"; and the cessation
of such familiarities had increased the chill of his return to
Starkfield.

There the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone, after
his father's accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, he had had
no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when his mother
fell ill the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that
of the fields. His mother had been a talker in her day, but after her
"trouble" the sound of her voice was seldom heard, though she had not
lost the power of speech. Sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when
in desperation her son asked her why she didn't "say something," she
would lift a finger and answer: "Because I'm listening"; and on stormy
nights, when the loud wind was about the house, she would complain, if
he spoke to her: "They're talking so out there that I can't hear you."

It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin
Zenobia Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her,
that human speech was heard again in the house. After the mortal silence
of his long imprisonment Zeena's volubility was music in his ears. He
felt that he might have "gone like his mother" if the sound of a new
voice had not come to steady him. Zeena seemed to understand his case
at a glance. She laughed at him for not knowing the simplest sick-bed
duties and told him to "go right along out" and leave her to see to
things. The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about
his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance
and magnified his sense of what he owed her. Her efficiency shamed and
dazzled him. She seemed to possess by instinct all the household wisdom
that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him. When the end came
it was she who had to tell him to hitch up and go for the undertaker,
and she thought it "funny" that he had not settled beforehand who was
to have his mother's clothes and the sewing-machine. After the funeral,
when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning
dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was
doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He had often thought
since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring
instead of winter...

When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten out
the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they would
sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town. Ethan's
love of nature did not take the form of a taste for agriculture. He had
always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in towns, where there
were lectures and big libraries and "fellows doing things." A slight
engineering job in Florida, put in his way during his period of study at
Worcester, increased his faith in his ability as well as his eagerness
to see the world; and he felt sure that, with a "smart" wife like Zeena,
it would not be long before he had made himself a place in it.

Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway
than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that
life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she married.
But purchasers were slow in coming, and while he waited for them Ethan
learned the impossibility of transplanting her. She chose to look down
on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place which looked
down on her. Even Bettsbridge or Shadd's Falls would not have been
sufficiently aware of her, and in the greater cities which attracted
Ethan she would have suffered a complete loss of identity. And within
a year of their marriage she developed the "sickliness" which had since
made her notable even in a community rich in pathological instances.
When she came to take care of his mother she had seemed to Ethan like
the very genius of health, but he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had
been acquired by the absorbed observation of her own symptoms.

Then she too fell silent. Perhaps it was the inevitable effect of life
on the farm, or perhaps, as she sometimes said, it was because Ethan
"never listened." The charge was not wholly unfounded. When she spoke
it was only to complain, and to complain of things not in his power to
remedy; and to check a tendency to impatient retort he had first formed
the habit of not answering her, and finally of thinking of other things
while she talked. Of late, however, since he had reasons for observing
her more closely, her silence had begun to trouble him. He recalled his
mother's growing taciturnity, and wondered if Zeena were also turning
"queer." Women did, he knew. Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the
pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind
while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely
farm-houses in the neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and
of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence. At times,
looking at Zeena's shut face, he felt the chill of such forebodings.
At other times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to conceal
far-reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn from suspicions
and resentments impossible to guess. That supposition was even more
disturbing than the other; and it was the one which had come to him the
night before, when he had seen her standing in the kitchen door.

Now her departure for Bettsbridge had once more eased his mind, and all
his thoughts were on the prospect of his evening with Mattie. Only one
thing weighed on him, and that was his having told Zeena that he was to
receive cash for the lumber. He foresaw so clearly the consequences
of this imprudence that with considerable reluctance he decided to ask
Andrew Hale for a small advance on his load.

When Ethan drove into Hale's yard the builder was just getting out of
his sleigh.

"Hello, Ethe!" he said. "This comes handy."

Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
was always fastened by a small diamond stud. This display of opulence
was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known
that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently
kept him what Starkfield called "behind." He was an old friend of
Ethan's family, and his house one of the few to which Zeena occasionally
went, drawn there by the fact that Mrs. Hale, in her youth, had done
more "doctoring" than any other woman in Starkfield, and was still a
recognised authority on symptoms and treatment.

Hale went up to the grays and patted their sweating flanks.

"Well, sir," he said, "you keep them two as if they was pets."

Ethan set about unloading the logs and when he had finished his job he
pushed open the glazed door of the shed which the builder used as his
office. Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.

"Sit right down and thaw out," he greeted Ethan.

The latter did not know how to begin, but at length he managed to bring
out his request for an advance of fifty dollars. The blood rushed to his
thin skin under the sting of Hale's astonishment. It was the builder's
custom to pay at the end of three months, and there was no precedent
between the two men for a cash settlement.

Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have made
shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinctive prudence, kept him from
resorting to this argument. After his father's death it had taken time
to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew Hale, or any one
else in Starkfield, to think he was going under again. Besides, he hated
lying; if he wanted the money he wanted it, and it was nobody's business
to ask why. He therefore made his demand with the awkwardness of a proud
man who will not admit to himself that he is stooping; and he was not
much surprised at Hale's refusal.

The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the
matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to
know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a "cupolo" to his
house; offering, in the latter case, to give his services free of cost.

Ethan's arts were soon exhausted, and after an embarrassed pause he
wished Hale good day and opened the door of the office. As he passed out
the builder suddenly called after him: "See here--you ain't in a tight
place, are you?"

"Not a bit," Ethan's pride retorted before his reason had time to
intervene.

"Well, that's good! Because I am, a shade. Fact is, I was going to ask
you to give me a little extra time on that payment. Business is pretty
slack, to begin with, and then I'm fixing up a little house for Ned and
Ruth when they're married. I'm glad to do it for 'em, but it costs." His
look appealed to Ethan for sympathy. "The young people like things nice.
You know how it is yourself: it's not so long ago since you fixed up
your own place for Zeena."

Ethan left the grays in Hale's stable and went about some other business
in the village. As he walked away the builder's last phrase lingered in
his ears, and he reflected grimly that his seven years with Zeena seemed
to Starkfield "not so long."

The afternoon was drawing to an end, and here and there a lighted pane
spangled the cold gray dusk and made the snow look whiter. The bitter
weather had driven every one indoors and Ethan had the long rural street
to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk play of sleigh-bells and a
cutter passed him, drawn by a free-going horse. Ethan recognised Michael
Eady's roan colt, and young Denis Eady, in a handsome new fur cap,
leaned forward and waved a greeting. "Hello, Ethe!" he shouted and spun
on.

The cutter was going in the direction of the Frome farm, and Ethan's
heart contracted as he listened to the dwindling bells. What more likely
than that Denis Eady had heard of Zeena's departure for Bettsbridge, and
was profiting by the opportunity to spend an hour with Mattie? Ethan was
ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his breast. It seemed unworthy of
the girl that his thoughts of her should be so violent.

He walked on to the church corner and entered the shade of the Varnum
spruces, where he had stood with her the night before. As he passed
into their gloom he saw an indistinct outline just ahead of him. At
his approach it melted for an instant into two separate shapes and then
conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a half-laughing "Oh!" provoked
by the discovery of his presence. Again the outline hastily disunited
and the Varnum gate slammed on one half while the other hurried on ahead
of him. Ethan smiled at the discomfiture he had caused. What did it
matter to Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum if they were caught kissing each
other? Everybody in Starkfield knew they were engaged. It pleased Ethan
to have surprised a pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had
stood with such a thirst for each other in their hearts; but he felt a
pang at the thought that these two need not hide their happiness.

He fetched the grays from Hale's stable and started on his long climb
back to the farm. The cold was less sharp than earlier in the day and a
thick fleecy sky threatened snow for the morrow. Here and there a star
pricked through, showing behind it a deep well of blue. In an hour
or two the moon would push over the ridge behind the farm, burn a
gold-edged rent in the clouds, and then be swallowed by them. A mournful
peace hung on the fields, as though they felt the relaxing grasp of the
cold and stretched themselves in their long winter sleep.

Ethan's ears were alert for the jingle of sleigh-bells, but not a sound
broke the silence of the lonely road. As he drew near the farm he saw,
through the thin screen of larches at the gate, a light twinkling in
the house above him. "She's up in her room," he said to himself, "fixing
herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with
smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.

He passed by the graves on the knoll and turned his head to glance at
one of the older headstones, which had interested him deeply as a boy
because it bore his name.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

ETHAN FROME AND ENDURANCE HIS WIFE,

WHO DWELLED TOGETHER IN PEACE

FOR FIFTY YEARS.

He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live
together; but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash.
Then, with a sudden dart of irony, he wondered if, when their turn came,
the same epitaph would be written over him and Zeena.

He opened the barn-door and craned his head into the obscurity,
half-fearing to discover Denis Eady's roan colt in the stall beside
the sorrel. But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers. His was not
a tuneful throat--but harsh melodies burst from it as he locked the barn
and sprang up the hill to the house. He reached the kitchen-porch and
turned the door-handle; but the door did not yield to his touch.

Startled at finding it locked he rattled the handle violently; then
he reflected that Mattie was alone and that it was natural she should
barricade herself at nightfall. He stood in the darkness expecting to
hear her step. It did not come, and after vainly straining his ears he
called out in a voice that shook with joy: "Hello, Matt!"

Silence answered; but in a minute or two he caught a sound on the stairs
and saw a line of light about the door-frame, as he had seen it the
night before. So strange was the precision with which the incidents of
the previous evening were repeating themselves that he half expected,
when he heard the key turn, to see his wife before him on the threshold;
but the door opened, and Mattie faced him.

She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against
the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same
level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat
and the brown wrist no bigger than a child's. Then, striking upward, it
threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade,
and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.

She wore her usual dress of darkish stuff, and there was no bow at her
neck; but through her hair she had run a streak of crimson ribbon. This
tribute to the unusual transformed and glorified her. She seemed to
Ethan taller, fuller, more womanly in shape and motion. She stood aside,
smiling silently, while he entered, and then moved away from him with
something soft and flowing in her gait. She set the lamp on the table,
and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh dough-nuts,
stewed blueberries and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass.
A bright fire glowed in the stove and the cat lay stretched before it,
watching the table with a drowsy eye.

Ethan was suffocated with the sense of well-being. He went out into the
passage to hang up his coat and pull off his wet boots. When he came
back Mattie had set the teapot on the table and the cat was rubbing
itself persuasively against her ankles.

"Why, Puss! I nearly tripped over you," she cried, the laughter
sparkling through her lashes.

Again Ethan felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Could it be his coming
that gave her such a kindled face?

"Well, Matt, any visitors?" he threw off, stooping down carelessly to
examine the fastening of the stove.

She nodded and laughed "Yes, one," and he felt a blackness settling on
his brows.

"Who was that?" he questioned, raising himself up to slant a glance at
her beneath his scowl.

Her eyes danced with malice. "Why, Jotham Powell. He came in after he
got back, and asked for a drop of coffee before he went down home."

The blackness lifted and light flooded Ethan's brain. "That all? Well,
I hope you made out to let him have it." And after a pause he felt it
right to add: "I suppose he got Zeena over to the Flats all right?"

"Oh, yes; in plenty of time."

The name threw a chill between them, and they stood a moment looking
sideways at each other before Mattie said with a shy laugh. "I guess
it's about time for supper."

They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped
between them into Zeena's empty chair. "Oh, Puss!" said Mattie, and they
laughed again.

Ethan, a moment earlier, had felt himself on the brink of eloquence;
but the mention of Zeena had paralysed him. Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles. At last, after casting about for an effective opening, he took
a long gulp of tea, cleared his throat, and said: "Looks as if there'd
be more snow."

She feigned great interest. "Is that so? Do you suppose it'll interfere
with Zeena's getting back?" She flushed red as the question escaped her,
and hastily set down the cup she was lifting.

Ethan reached over for another helping of pickles. "You never can tell,
this time of year, it drifts so bad on the Flats." The name had benumbed
him again, and once more he felt as if Zeena were in the room between
them.

"Oh, Puss, you're too greedy!" Mattie cried.

The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie. The two leaned
forward at the same moment and their hands met on the handle of the jug.
Mattie's hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his clasped on it a
moment longer than was necessary. The cat, profiting by this unusual
demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat, and in doing so
backed into the pickle-dish, which fell to the floor with a crash.

Mattie, in an instant, had sprung from her chair and was down on her
knees by the fragments.

"Oh, Ethan, Ethan--it's all to pieces! What will Zeena say?"

But this time his courage was up. "Well, she'll have to say it to the
cat, any way!" he rejoined with a laugh, kneeling down at Mattie's side
to scrape up the swimming pickles.

She lifted stricken eyes to him. "Yes, but, you see, she never meant it
should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on
the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china-closet,
where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she'll want
to know why I did it--"

The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
resolution.

"She needn't know anything about it if you keep quiet. I'll get another
just like it to-morrow. Where did it come from? I'll go to Shadd's Falls
for it if I have to!"

"Oh, you'll never get another even there! It was a wedding present--don't
you remember? It came all the way from Philadelphia, from Zeena's aunt
that married the minister. That's why she wouldn't ever use it. Oh,
Ethan, Ethan, what in the world shall I do?"

She began to cry, and he felt as if every one of her tears were pouring
over him like burning lead. "Don't, Matt, don't--oh, don't!" he implored
her.

She struggled to her feet, and he rose and followed her helplessly while
she spread out the pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It seemed to
him as if the shattered fragments of their evening lay there.

"Here, give them to me," he said in a voice of sudden authority.

She drew aside, instinctively obeying his tone. "Oh, Ethan, what are you
going to do?"

Without replying he gathered the pieces of glass into his broad palm
and walked out of the kitchen to the passage. There he lit a candle-end,
opened the china-closet, and, reaching his long arm up to the highest
shelf, laid the pieces together with such accuracy of touch that a close
inspection convinced him of the impossibility of detecting from below
that the dish was broken. If he glued it together the next morning
months might elapse before his wife noticed what had happened, and
meanwhile he might after all be able to match the dish at Shadd's Falls
or Bettsbridge. Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of
immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and
found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the
floor.

"It's all right, Matt. Come back and finish supper," he commanded her.

Completely reassured, she shone on him through tear-hung lashes, and his
soul swelled with pride as he saw how his tone subdued her. She did not
even ask what he had done. Except when he was steering a big log down
the mountain to his mill he had never known such a thrilling sense of
mastery.

They finished supper, and while Mattie cleared the table Ethan went to
look at the cows and then took a last turn about the house. The earth
lay dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that now and then
he heard a lump of snow come thumping down from a tree far off on the
edge of the wood-lot.

When he returned to the kitchen Mattie had pushed up his chair to the
stove and seated herself near the lamp with a bit of sewing. The scene
was just as he had dreamed of it that morning. He sat down, drew his
pipe from his pocket and stretched his feet to the glow. His hard day's
work in the keen air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood, and
he had a confused sense of being in another world, where all was warmth
and harmony and time could bring no change. The only drawback to his
complete well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where
he sat; but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said:
"Come over here and sit by the stove."

Zeena's empty rocking-chair stood facing him. Mattie rose obediently,
and seated herself in it. As her young brown head detached itself
against the patch-work cushion that habitually framed his wife's gaunt
countenance, Ethan had a momentary shock. It was almost as if the other
face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the
intruder. After a moment Mattie seemed to be affected by the same sense
of constraint. She changed her position, leaning forward to bend her
head above her work, so that he saw only the foreshortened tip of her
nose and the streak of red in her hair; then she slipped to her feet,
saying "I can't see to sew," and went back to her chair by the lamp.

Ethan made a pretext of getting up to replenish the stove, and when he
returned to his seat he pushed it sideways that he might get a view of
her profile and of the lamplight falling on her hands. The cat, who
had been a puzzled observer of these unusual movements, jumped up into
Zeena's chair, rolled itself into a ball, and lay watching them with
narrowed eyes.

Deep quiet sank on the room. The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece
of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp
scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which
began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish
cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.

All constraint had vanished between the two, and they began to talk
easily and simply. They spoke of every-day things, of the prospect
of snow, of the next church sociable, of the loves and quarrels of
Starkfield. The commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan
an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion
could have given, and he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that
they had always spent their evenings thus and would always go on doing
so...

"This is the night we were to have gone coasting, Matt," he said at
length, with the rich sense, as he spoke, that they could go on any
other night they chose, since they had all time before them.

She smiled back at him. "I guess you forgot!"

"No, I didn't forget; but it's as dark as Egypt outdoors. We might go
to-morrow if there's a moon."

She laughed with pleasure, her head tilted back, the lamplight sparkling
on her lips and teeth. "That would be lovely, Ethan!"

He kept his eyes fixed on her, marvelling at the way her face changed
with each turn of their talk, like a wheat-field under a summer breeze.
It was intoxicating to find such magic in his clumsy words, and he
longed to try new ways of using it.

"Would you be scared to go down the Corbury road with me on a night like
this?" he asked.

Her cheeks burned redder. "I ain't any more scared than you are!"

"Well, I'd be scared, then; I wouldn't do it. That's an ugly corner down
by the big elm. If a fellow didn't keep his eyes open he'd go plumb into
it." He luxuriated in the sense of protection and authority which his
words conveyed. To prolong and intensify the feeling he added: "I guess
we're well enough here."

She let her lids sink slowly, in the way he loved. "Yes, we're well
enough here," she sighed.

Her tone was so sweet that he took the pipe from his mouth and drew his
chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the farther end of
the strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. "Say, Matt," he began
with a smile, "what do you think I saw under the Varnum spruces, coming
along home just now? I saw a friend of yours getting kissed."

The words had been on his tongue all the evening, but now that he had
spoken them they struck him as inexpressibly vulgar and out of place.

Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly
twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away
from him. "I suppose it was Ruth and Ned," she said in a low voice, as
though he had suddenly touched on something grave.

Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the accepted
pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless caress, if only
a mere touch on her hand. But now he felt as if her blush had set a
flaming guard about her. He supposed it was his natural awkwardness that
made him feel so. He knew that most young men made nothing at all of
giving a pretty girl a kiss, and he remembered that the night before,
when he had put his arm about Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had
been out-of-doors, under the open irresponsible night. Now, in the warm
lamplit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order,
she seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable.

To ease his constraint he said: "I suppose they'll be setting a date
before long."

"Yes. I shouldn't wonder if they got married some time along in the
summer." She pronounced the word married as if her voice caressed it.
It seemed a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades. A pang shot
through Ethan, and he said, twisting away from her in his chair: "It'll
be your turn next, I wouldn't wonder."

She laughed a little uncertainly. "Why do you keep on saying that?"

He echoed her laugh. "I guess I do it to get used to the idea."

He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with dropped
lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way in which her
hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen
a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were
building. At length, without turning her head or lifting her lids, she
said in a low tone: "It's not because you think Zeena's got anything
against me, is it?"

His former dread started up full-armed at the suggestion. "Why, what do
you mean?" he stammered.

She raised distressed eyes to his, her work dropping on the table
between them. "I don't know. I thought last night she seemed to have."

"I'd like to know what," he growled.

"Nobody can tell with Zeena." It was the first time they had ever spoken
so openly of her attitude toward Mattie, and the repetition of the name
seemed to carry it to the farther corners of the room and send it back
to them in long repercussions of sound. Mattie waited, as if to give the
echo time to drop, and then went on: "She hasn't said anything to you?"

He shook his head. "No, not a word."

She tossed the hair back from her forehead with a laugh. "I guess I'm
just nervous, then. I'm not going to think about it any more."

"Oh, no--don't let's think about it, Matt!"

The sudden heat of his tone made her colour mount again, not with
a rush, but gradually, delicately, like the reflection of a thought
stealing slowly across her heart. She sat silent, her hands clasped on
her work, and it seemed to him that a warm current flowed toward
him along the strip of stuff that still lay unrolled between them.
Cautiously he slid his hand palm-downward along the table till his
finger-tips touched the end of the stuff. A faint vibration of her
lashes seemed to show that she was aware of his gesture, and that it had
sent a counter-current back to her; and she let her hands lie motionless
on the other end of the strip.

As they sat thus he heard a sound behind him and turned his head. The
cat had jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the wainscot,
and as a result of the sudden movement the empty chair had set up a
spectral rocking.

"She'll be rocking in it herself this time to-morrow," Ethan thought.
"I've been in a dream, and this is the only evening we'll ever have
together." The return to reality was as painful as the return to
consciousness after taking an anaesthetic. His body and brain ached with
indescribable weariness, and he could think of nothing to say or to do
that should arrest the mad flight of the moments.

His alteration of mood seemed to have communicated itself to Mattie. She
looked up at him languidly, as though her lids were weighted with sleep
and it cost her an effort to raise them. Her glance fell on his hand,
which now completely covered the end of her work and grasped it as if it
were a part of herself. He saw a scarcely perceptible tremor cross her
face, and without knowing what he did he stooped his head and kissed
the bit of stuff in his hold. As his lips rested on it he felt it glide
slowly from beneath them, and saw that Mattie had risen and was silently
rolling up her work. She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding
her thimble and scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the
box covered with fancy paper which he had once brought to her from
Bettsbridge.

He stood up also, looking vaguely about the room. The clock above the
dresser struck eleven.

"Is the fire all right?" she asked in a low voice.

He opened the door of the stove and poked aimlessly at the embers. When
he raised himself again he saw that she was dragging toward the stove
the old soap-box lined with carpet in which the cat made its bed. Then
she recrossed the floor and lifted two of the geranium pots in her arms,
moving them away from the cold window. He followed her and brought the
other geraniums, the hyacinth bulbs in a cracked custard bowl and the
German ivy trained over an old croquet hoop.

When these nightly duties were performed there was nothing left to do
but to bring in the tin candlestick from the passage, light the candle
and blow out the lamp. Ethan put the candlestick in Mattie's hand and
she went out of the kitchen ahead of him, the light that she carried
before her making her dark hair look like a drift of mist on the moon.

"Good night, Matt," he said as she put her foot on the first step of the
stairs.

She turned and looked at him a moment. "Good night, Ethan," she
answered, and went up.

When the door of her room had closed on her he remembered that he had
not even touched her hand.

The next morning, Ethan is out early hauling lumber. He thinks about the previous night when he lay awake until the light in Mattie's room went out. He remembered when Mattie first came to stay with the Fromes. She had not had any place else to go. Her father, Zeena's cousin, squandered money before dying unexpectedly, and shortly thereafter, Mattie's mother died, leaving her destitute. Because family members lost money by trusting Mattie's father with it, they punished Mattie by refusing to help her. Zeena needed household help because of her illness, so Mattie arrived in Starkfield to work for Zeena. At first, Zeena found fault with everything Mattie did; however, over time, the situation became less tense. After the warning look that Mattie had given Ethan the previous night, Ethan felt it was necessary to leave his work and return home to be sure there was no trouble between Mattie and Zeena. Ethan was surprised to see Zeena sitting in the kitchen with her suitcase. She announced that she was going to Bettsbridge to see a doctor and would be staying with her aunt, Martha Pierce. The first thought that came to Ethan's mind was that he would be alone with Mattie for one full night. Because he didn't want to drive Zeena to the Junction, he lied to her, saying he needed to pick up money from Andrew Hale but that Jotham Powell would drive her. After Zeena leaves, Ethan leaves the house also to take his load of lumber to Andrew Hale. On the way he thinks about his past -- the death of his father, the responsibility of running the farm and mill, his mother's silence and ultimate death, and his marriage to Zeena after she had cared for his mother. The couple wanted to move away from Starkfield, but Ethan couldn't find a buyer for the farm and mill and he realized that Zeena needed to stay in Starkfield where she was well known . Zeena soon became silent also and communication between the couple came to a halt. After delivering lumber to Andrew Hale and asking for payment , Ethan takes care of other business in town and heads home. When he gets home, the back door is locked. He calls for Mattie and she opens the door, standing exactly as Zeena stood the night before. Mattie set the dinner table special for Ethan, using Zeena's cherished red pickle dish. During the course of their meal, the cat knocks the dish and it falls on the floor and breaks. Mattie is quite upset, but Ethan pieces the dish together, puts it on the shelf, and promises to glue it together the next day. Mattie clears the table and they sit down near the fire. Mattie and Ethan talk comfortably with each other while Mattie sews. When the cat jumps from Zeena's chair, they are reminded of Zeena's return. They take care of their nightly chores and go to bed.

In anticipation of Ethan and Mattie's evening together during Zeena's trip to Bettsbridge, Wharton has Ethan recall Mattie's background and the details of how she came to live with the Fromes. If Mattie's accomplishments such as making candy and trimming hats seem frivolous in the face of the hard work she is required to do for Zeena, these abilities represent a youthful and happy personality which is able to entertain itself with frivolity instead of moping in self-pity about imagined ills as Zeena does. Mattie is in most ways the opposite of Zeena; Mattie is happy, healthy, pretty and young, while Zeena is unhappy, sickly, ugly, and seven years older than Ethan. In Mattie, Wharton creates a character who is naturally appealing while presenting Zeena as an unlikable and cold woman. Zeena is whining and petulant and her presence must be endured. When describing Zeena sitting at the table, Wharton uses bleak and cold imagery. Zeena sits in "the pale light reflected from the banks of snow," which makes "her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless," and makes her other unattractive features more apparent. Ethan's first thought about Zeena's trip is that such trips have cost him a lot of money in the past, and the remedies have not had a positive effect on Zeena's illness. He disregards these unpleasant recollections when he realizes that he will be able to spend the night alone with Mattie. Ethan's fears that Zeena may suspect his love for Mattie are allayed when he realizes that Zeena was indeed feeling ill the previous night. Ethan, who is normally rather honest, comes up with a story to tell Zeena about why he can't drive her to the train station. The story Ethan comes up with  is acceptable to Zeena. He realizes that it was not a good idea to let Zeena know that he has any money before she went on one of her expensive journeys to doctors. Such considerations are quickly put aside, as Ethan returns to thoughts about the evening with Mattie. The lie that he told Zeena will come back to haunt him because Zeena later justifies hiring a girl to replace Mattie based on the money Ethan was supposed to be getting. After Zeena leaves with Jotham Powell, the kitchen seems more comfortable and inviting because Mattie and Ethan are alone. Ethan goes to town, his mind is busy conjuring up pictures of what the evening with Mattie will be like. It is important to note that Ethan visualizes nothing illicit or immoral; all he hopes for is an evening of companionship before the fire. Ethan's thoughts about the evening prompt him to think about the silence that has been part of his life since his college days. The theme of silence is discussed with reference to Ethan's past. Some of the symptoms of the silence surrounding Ethan were his inability to communicate with Zeena and his halting efforts to say something significant to Mattie. The silence imposed by his marriage to Zeena is one of the causes of Ethan's need for illusion. Illusion in turn reinforces the silence by helping Ethan avoid communication by fantasizing. Wharton reveals the background of Ethan's marriage to Zeena is revealed so the evening with Mattie in which silence is partially conquered will be prepared for. Wharton reveals the depth of isolation that Ethan experiences in his mind as a result of living in a silent house with a silent woman. Because Ethan couldn't bear to be alone, he married Zeena . He now wonders whether or not he would have married Zeena if it had been spring instead of winter. Ethan realizes that his fear of loneliness rather than love for Zeena prompted their marriage. After the death of his father, Ethan had the responsibility of the farm and mill, leaving him little time for establishing relationships with villagers. When his mother stopped talking, Ethan felt as though the silence would drive him mad. After delivering lumber to Andrew Hale and asking Hale for money , Ethan drives home and passes the family cemetery where the family tombstone of Ethan and Endurance Frome proclaims that they shared fifty years of wedded bliss. The epitaph seems ironic to Ethan. Recently reminded of seven years' endurance of Zeena, he wonders what people might someday say about the two of them. More important as a parallel to the previous night's action , Ethan's thoughts show that he now seriously does consider himself married to Zeena, and that he briefly realizes his thoughts of being buried in the cemetery with Mattie were fantasy. The headstone is also ironic because, in the end, it is Zeena who must forego her illnesses and prove herself in the role of "endurance" in anything but peaceful circumstances as she ministers for years to the two crippled victims of the sledding accident. The events of the night before are paralleled in order to draw attention in a dramatic and climactic moment to the difference between Zeena and Mattie. When Mattie lets Ethan in the locked back door, standing in the same pose that Zeena did the night before, Ethan is struck by the immense difference between the young, warm, and feminine Mattie and his old, cold, and hard wife Zeena. Wharton structures the events in this way to allow Mattie to demonstrate her feelings for Ethan without oral communication. Mattie shows Ethan how special he is to her by adding a red ribbon to her hair, laughing, and preparing Ethan's favorite foods. During the meal, Ethan and Mattie are uncomfortable mentioning Zeena's name. Wharton uses the cat as a stand-in for Zeena. Mattie almost trips over the cat, the cat sits in Zeena's chair during the meal, the cat causes the pickle dish to be broken and sits in Zeena's chair near the fire. Breaking the pickle dish is a climactic event in the novel. Mattie uses the pickle dish, one of Zeena's most cherished wedding presents, for one of Ethan's favorite foods and to set a special table for Ethan. Using the pickle dish is a trespass against Zeena. Neither Ethan nor Mattie want to acknowledge the trespass to Zeena, and to cover up their guilt, Ethan becomes assertive. He deliberately intends to deceive Zeena by gluing the dish back together in order to protect Mattie. This act enables Ethan to feel a sense of masculine dominance, a feeling he has never experienced with Zeena. After the meal, Ethan and Mattie communicate easily with each other, enjoying the companionship of the other. Ethan allows himself to imagine that Mattie is his wife and this particular night is typical for them. He talks of going coasting and enjoys the sense of masculine superiority by trying to make Mattie admit she would be afraid. They talk again about sledding, the reference to coasting foreshadowing their smash-up. Ethan and Mattie also talk about Zeena and the fact that she is dissatisfied with Mattie's abilities to perform the household chores. They both agree that Zeena is unpredictable. Wharton foreshadows Zeena's decision to fire Mattie and get a new girl to do the housework. Wharton associates the imagery of warmth, summer, and natural life with Mattie: her face seems "like a wheat field under a summer breeze"; her pronunciation of the word "married" seems to invoke "a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades"; and the action of her hands over her sewing resembles birds building their nests. After being startled once again by the cat jumping out of Zeena's rocker, Ethan realizes that the evening has been much like a dream. He and Mattie have done their best to avoid reality and Ethan feels weary and defeated. Ethan kisses the material that Mattie is sewing as a gesture of the intimacy of the evening. They go off to bed, realizing that they each have feelings for the other. It is the first moment that Ethan and Mattie convey their true feelings to one another. Glossary scintillating sparkling intellectually; brilliant and witty draughts deep breaths imperceptible not plain or distinct to the senses or the mind; especially, so slight, gradual, subtle, etc.; as not to be easily perceived merino fine wool, originally from Spain undulations wavy, curving forms or outlines, especially in a series bandbox a light, round box to hold hats, collars, etc. flux to flow or stream out spruce dress in a neat and trim in a smart, dapper way marrow the innermost, essential, or choicest part; pith cessation a ceasing, or stopping, either forever or for some time convivial fond of eating, drinking, and good company; sociable; jovial taciturnity the fact or condition of being almost always silent or uncommunicative, or not inclined to talk precedent that precedes; preceding conjoined joined together; united; combined rent a hole or gap made by rending or tearing, as a torn place in cloth, a fissure in the earth, etc. kindled caused to light up; made bright indolent disliking or avoiding work; idle; lazy wainscot a wood lining or paneling on the walls of a room; sometimes, specifically, such paneling on the lower part of the walls only spectral of, having the nature of, or like a specter; phantom; ghostly


The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan
tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging
back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather,
and not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away
the dishes.

He did not know why he was so irrationally happy, for nothing was
changed in his life or hers. He had not even touched the tip of her
fingers or looked her full in the eyes. But their evening together had
given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad
now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture. He
had a fancy that she knew what had restrained him...

There was a last load of lumber to be hauled to the village, and Jotham
Powell--who did not work regularly for Ethan in winter--had "come round"
to help with the job. But a wet snow, melting to sleet, had fallen in
the night and turned the roads to glass. There was more wet in the air
and it seemed likely to both men that the weather would "milden" toward
afternoon and make the going safer. Ethan therefore proposed to his
assistant that they should load the sledge at the wood-lot, as they had
done on the previous morning, and put off the "teaming" to Starkfield
till later in the day. This plan had the advantage of enabling him to
send Jotham to the Flats after dinner to meet Zenobia, while he himself
took the lumber down to the village.

He told Jotham to go out and harness up the greys, and for a moment he
and Mattie had the kitchen to themselves. She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.

Ethan stood looking at her, his heart in his throat. He wanted to say:
"We shall never be alone again like this." Instead, he reached down his
tobacco-pouch from a shelf of the dresser, put it into his pocket and
said: "I guess I can make out to be home for dinner."

She answered "All right, Ethan," and he heard her singing over the
dishes as he went.

As soon as the sledge was loaded he meant to send Jotham back to
the farm and hurry on foot into the village to buy the glue for the
pickle-dish. With ordinary luck he should have had time to carry out
this plan; but everything went wrong from the start. On the way over
to the wood-lot one of the greys slipped on a glare of ice and cut his
knee; and when they got him up again Jotham had to go back to the barn
for a strip of rag to bind the cut. Then, when the loading finally
began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were
so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get
them in place on the sledge. It was what Jotham called a sour morning
for work, and the horses, shivering and stamping under their wet
blankets, seemed to like it as little as the men. It was long past the
dinner-hour when the job was done, and Ethan had to give up going to the
village because he wanted to lead the injured horse home and wash the
cut himself.

He thought that by starting out again with the lumber as soon as he had
finished his dinner he might get back to the farm with the glue before
Jotham and the old sorrel had had time to fetch Zenobia from the Flats;
but he knew the chance was a slight one. It turned on the state of
the roads and on the possible lateness of the Bettsbridge train.
He remembered afterward, with a grim flash of self-derision, what
importance he had attached to the weighing of these probabilities...

As soon as dinner was over he set out again for the wood-lot, not daring
to linger till Jotham Powell left. The hired man was still drying his
wet feet at the stove, and Ethan could only give Mattie a quick look as
he said beneath his breath: "I'll be back early."

He fancied that she nodded her comprehension; and with that scant solace
he had to trudge off through the rain.

He had driven his load half-way to the village when Jotham Powell
overtook him, urging the reluctant sorrel toward the Flats. "I'll have
to hurry up to do it," Ethan mused, as the sleigh dropped down ahead
of him over the dip of the school-house hill. He worked like ten at the
unloading, and when it was over hastened on to Michael Eady's for the
glue. Eady and his assistant were both "down street," and young Denis,
who seldom deigned to take their place, was lounging by the stove with
a knot of the golden youth of Starkfield. They hailed Ethan with ironic
compliment and offers of conviviality; but no one knew where to find
the glue. Ethan, consumed with the longing for a last moment alone with
Mattie, hung about impatiently while Denis made an ineffectual search in
the obscurer corners of the store.

"Looks as if we were all sold out. But if you'll wait around till the
old man comes along maybe he can put his hand on it."

"I'm obliged to you, but I'll try if I can get it down at Mrs. Homan's,"
Ethan answered, burning to be gone.

Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to aver on oath that what
Eady's store could not produce would never be found at the widow
Homan's; but Ethan, heedless of this boast, had already climbed to
the sledge and was driving on to the rival establishment. Here, after
considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted
it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she
couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary
bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and
corset-laces.

"I hope Zeena ain't broken anything she sets store by," she called after
him as he turned the greys toward home.

The fitful bursts of sleet had changed into a steady rain and the horses
had heavy work even without a load behind them. Once or twice, hearing
sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that Zeena and Jotham
might overtake him; but the old sorrel was not in sight, and he set his
face against the rain and urged on his ponderous pair.

The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them
the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he
strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door.

Mattie was there alone, as he had pictured her. She was bending over a
pan on the stove; but at the sound of his step she turned with a start
and sprang to him.

"See, here, Matt, I've got some stuff to mend the dish with! Let me get
at it quick," he cried, waving the bottle in one hand while he put her
lightly aside; but she did not seem to hear him.

"Oh, Ethan--Zeena's come," she said in a whisper, clutching his sleeve.

They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits.

"But the sorrel's not in the barn!" Ethan stammered.

"Jotham Powell brought some goods over from the Flats for his wife, and
he drove right on home with them," she explained.

He gazed blankly about the kitchen, which looked cold and squalid in the
rainy winter twilight.

"How is she?" he asked, dropping his voice to Mattie's whisper.

She looked away from him uncertainly. "I don't know. She went right up
to her room."

"She didn't say anything?"

"No."

Ethan let out his doubts in a low whistle and thrust the bottle back
into his pocket. "Don't fret; I'll come down and mend it in the night,"
he said. He pulled on his wet coat again and went back to the barn to
feed the greys.

While he was there Jotham Powell drove up with the sleigh, and when the
horses had been attended to Ethan said to him: "You might as well come
back up for a bite." He was not sorry to assure himself of Jotham's
neutralising presence at the supper table, for Zeena was always
"nervous" after a journey. But the hired man, though seldom loth to
accept a meal not included in his wages, opened his stiff jaws to answer
slowly: "I'm obliged to you, but I guess I'll go along back."

Ethan looked at him in surprise. "Better come up and dry off. Looks as
if there'd be something hot for supper."

Jotham's facial muscles were unmoved by this appeal and, his vocabulary
being limited, he merely repeated: "I guess I'll go along back."

To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of
free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to
nerve Jotham to such stoicism. Perhaps Zeena had failed to see the new
doctor or had not liked his counsels: Ethan knew that in such cases
the first person she met was likely to be held responsible for her
grievance.

When he re-entered the kitchen the lamp lit up the same scene of shining
comfort as on the previous evening. The table had been as carefully
laid, a clear fire glowed in the stove, the cat dozed in its warmth, and
Mattie came forward carrying a plate of dough-nuts.

She and Ethan looked at each other in silence; then she said, as she had
said the night before: "I guess it's about time for supper."

Ethan went out into the passage to hang up his wet garments. He listened
for Zeena's step and, not hearing it, called her name up the stairs. She
did not answer, and after a moment's hesitation he went up and opened
her door. The room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw her
sitting by the window, bolt upright, and knew by the rigidity of the
outline projected against the pane that she had not taken off her
travelling dress.

"Well, Zeena," he ventured from the threshold.

She did not move, and he continued: "Supper's about ready. Ain't you
coming?"

She replied: "I don't feel as if I could touch a morsel."

It was the consecrated formula, and he expected it to be followed, as
usual, by her rising and going down to supper. But she remained seated,
and he could think of nothing more felicitous than: "I presume you're
tired after the long ride."

Turning her head at this, she answered solemnly: "I'm a great deal
sicker than you think."

Her words fell on his ear with a strange shock of wonder. He had often
heard her pronounce them before--what if at last they were true?

He advanced a step or two into the dim room. "I hope that's not so,
Zeena," he said.

She continued to gaze at him through the twilight with a mien of wan
authority, as of one consciously singled out for a great fate. "I've got
complications," she said.

Ethan knew the word for one of exceptional import. Almost everybody in
the neighbourhood had "troubles," frankly localized and specified;
but only the chosen had "complications." To have them was in itself a
distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death-warrant. People
struggled on for years with "troubles," but they almost always succumbed
to "complications."

Ethan's heart was jerking to and fro between two extremities of feeling,
but for the moment compassion prevailed. His wife looked so hard and
lonely, sitting there in the darkness with such thoughts.

"Is that what the new doctor told you?" he asked, instinctively lowering
his voice.

"Yes. He says any regular doctor would want me to have an operation."

Ethan was aware that, in regard to the important question of surgical
intervention, the female opinion of the neighbourhood was divided, some
glorying in the prestige conferred by operations while others shunned
them as indelicate. Ethan, from motives of economy, had always been glad
that Zeena was of the latter faction.

In the agitation caused by the gravity of her announcement he sought
a consolatory short cut. "What do you know about this doctor anyway?
Nobody ever told you that before."

He saw his blunder before she could take it up: she wanted sympathy, not
consolation.

"I didn't need to have anybody tell me I was losing ground every day.
Everybody but you could see it. And everybody in Bettsbridge knows
about Dr. Buck. He has his office in Worcester, and comes over once
a fortnight to Shadd's Falls and Bettsbridge for consultations. Eliza
Spears was wasting away with kidney trouble before she went to him, and
now she's up and around, and singing in the choir."

"Well, I'm glad of that. You must do just what he tells you," Ethan
answered sympathetically.

She was still looking at him. "I mean to," she said. He was struck by a
new note in her voice. It was neither whining nor reproachful, but drily
resolute.

"What does he want you should do?" he asked, with a mounting vision of
fresh expenses.

"He wants I should have a hired girl. He says I oughtn't to have to do a
single thing around the house."

"A hired girl?" Ethan stood transfixed.

"Yes. And Aunt Martha found me one right off. Everybody said I was lucky
to get a girl to come away out here, and I agreed to give her a dollar
extry to make sure. She'll be over to-morrow afternoon."

Wrath and dismay contended in Ethan. He had foreseen an immediate demand
for money, but not a permanent drain on his scant resources. He no
longer believed what Zeena had told him of the supposed seriousness of
her state: he saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge only a plot hatched
between herself and her Pierce relations to foist on him the cost of a
servant; and for the moment wrath predominated.

"If you meant to engage a girl you ought to have told me before you
started," he said.

"How could I tell you before I started? How did I know what Dr. Buck
would say?"

"Oh, Dr. Buck--" Ethan's incredulity escaped in a short laugh. "Did Dr.
Buck tell you how I was to pay her wages?"

Her voice rose furiously with his. "No, he didn't. For I'd 'a' been
ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my health,
when I lost it nursing your own mother!"

"You lost your health nursing mother?"

"Yes; and my folks all told me at the time you couldn't do no less than
marry me after--"

"Zeena!"

Through the obscurity which hid their faces their thoughts seemed to
dart at each other like serpents shooting venom. Ethan was seized
with horror of the scene and shame at his own share in it. It was as
senseless and savage as a physical fight between two enemies in the
darkness.

He turned to the shelf above the chimney, groped for matches and lit the
one candle in the room. At first its weak flame made no impression on
the shadows; then Zeena's face stood grimly out against the uncurtained
pane, which had turned from grey to black.

It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad
seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an irretrievable
advantage in descending to the level of recrimination. But the practical
problem was there and had to be dealt with.

"You know I haven't got the money to pay for a girl, Zeena. You'll have
to send her back: I can't do it."

"The doctor says it'll be my death if I go on slaving the way I've had
to. He doesn't understand how I've stood it as long as I have."

"Slaving!--" He checked himself again, "You sha'n't lift a hand, if he
says so. I'll do everything round the house myself--"

She broke in: "You're neglecting the farm enough already," and this
being true, he found no answer, and left her time to add ironically:
"Better send me over to the almshouse and done with it... I guess
there's been Fromes there afore now."

The taunt burned into him, but he let it pass. "I haven't got the money.
That settles it."

There was a moment's pause in the struggle, as though the combatants
were testing their weapons. Then Zeena said in a level voice: "I thought
you were to get fifty dollars from Andrew Hale for that lumber."

"Andrew Hale never pays under three months." He had hardly spoken when
he remembered the excuse he had made for not accompanying his wife to
the station the day before; and the blood rose to his frowning brows.

"Why, you told me yesterday you'd fixed it up with him to pay cash down.
You said that was why you couldn't drive me over to the Flats."

Ethan had no suppleness in deceiving. He had never before been convicted
of a lie, and all the resources of evasion failed him. "I guess that was
a misunderstanding," he stammered.

"You ain't got the money?"

"No."

"And you ain't going to get it?"

"No."

"Well, I couldn't know that when I engaged the girl, could I?"

"No." He paused to control his voice. "But you know it now. I'm sorry,
but it can't be helped. You're a poor man's wife, Zeena; but I'll do the
best I can for you."

For a while she sat motionless, as if reflecting, her arms stretched
along the arms of her chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. "Oh, I guess
we'll make out," she said mildly.

The change in her tone reassured him. "Of course we will! There's a
whole lot more I can do for you, and Mattie--"

Zeena, while he spoke, seemed to be following out some elaborate mental
calculation. She emerged from it to say: "There'll be Mattie's board
less, any how--"

Ethan, supposing the discussion to be over, had turned to go down to
supper. He stopped short, not grasping what he heard. "Mattie's board
less--?" he began.

Zeena laughed. It was on odd unfamiliar sound--he did not remember ever
having heard her laugh before. "You didn't suppose I was going to keep
two girls, did you? No wonder you were scared at the expense!"

He still had but a confused sense of what she was saying. From the
beginning of the discussion he had instinctively avoided the mention of
Mattie's name, fearing he hardly knew what: criticism, complaints, or
vague allusions to the imminent probability of her marrying. But the
thought of a definite rupture had never come to him, and even now could
not lodge itself in his mind.

"I don't know what you mean," he said. "Mattie Silver's not a hired
girl. She's your relation."

"She's a pauper that's hung onto us all after her father'd done his best
to ruin us. I've kep' her here a whole year: it's somebody else's turn
now."

As the shrill words shot out Ethan heard a tap on the door, which he had
drawn shut when he turned back from the threshold.

"Ethan--Zeena!" Mattie's voice sounded gaily from the landing, "do you
know what time it is? Supper's been ready half an hour."

Inside the room there was a moment's silence; then Zeena called out from
her seat: "I'm not coming down to supper."

"Oh, I'm sorry! Aren't you well? Sha'n't I bring you up a bite of
something?"

Ethan roused himself with an effort and opened the door. "Go along down,
Matt. Zeena's just a little tired. I'm coming."

He heard her "All right!" and her quick step on the stairs; then he
shut the door and turned back into the room. His wife's attitude was
unchanged, her face inexorable, and he was seized with the despairing
sense of his helplessness.

"You ain't going to do it, Zeena?"

"Do what?" she emitted between flattened lips.

"Send Mattie away--like this?"

"I never bargained to take her for life!"

He continued with rising vehemence: "You can't put her out of the house
like a thief--a poor girl without friends or money. She's done her best
for you and she's got no place to go to. You may forget she's your kin
but everybody else'll remember it. If you do a thing like that what do
you suppose folks'll say of you?"

Zeena waited a moment, as if giving him time to feel the full force
of the contrast between his own excitement and her composure. Then she
replied in the same smooth voice: "I know well enough what they say of
my having kep' her here as long as I have."

Ethan's hand dropped from the door-knob, which he had held clenched
since he had drawn the door shut on Mattie. His wife's retort was like a
knife-cut across the sinews and he felt suddenly weak and powerless.
He had meant to humble himself, to argue that Mattie's keep didn't cost
much, after all, that he could make out to buy a stove and fix up a
place in the attic for the hired girl--but Zeena's words revealed the
peril of such pleadings.

"You mean to tell her she's got to go--at once?" he faltered out, in
terror of letting his wife complete her sentence.

As if trying to make him see reason she replied impartially: "The girl
will be over from Bettsbridge to-morrow, and I presume she's got to have
somewheres to sleep."

Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless
creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption,
but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long
years of silent brooding. It was the sense of his helplessness that
sharpened his antipathy. There had never been anything in her that
one could appeal to; but as long as he could ignore and command he had
remained indifferent. Now she had mastered him and he abhorred her.
Mattie was her relation, not his: there were no means by which he could
compel her to keep the girl under her roof. All the long misery of his
baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose
up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the
woman who at every turn had barred his way. She had taken everything
else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for
all the others. For a moment such a flame of hate rose in him that it
ran down his arm and clenched his fist against her. He took a wild step
forward and then stopped.

"You're--you're not coming down?" he said in a bewildered voice.

"No. I guess I'll lay down on the bed a little while," she answered
mildly; and he turned and walked out of the room.

In the kitchen Mattie was sitting by the stove, the cat curled up on her
knees. She sprang to her feet as Ethan entered and carried the covered
dish of meat-pie to the table.

"I hope Zeena isn't sick?" she asked.

"No."

She shone at him across the table. "Well, sit right down then. You must
be starving." She uncovered the pie and pushed it over to him. So they
were to have one more evening together, her happy eyes seemed to say!

He helped himself mechanically and began to eat; then disgust took him
by the throat and he laid down his fork.

Mattie's tender gaze was on him and she marked the gesture.

"Why, Ethan, what's the matter? Don't it taste right?"

"Yes--it's first-rate. Only I--" He pushed his plate away, rose from his
chair, and walked around the table to her side. She started up with
frightened eyes.

"Ethan, there's something wrong! I knew there was!"

She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his
arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted
butterflies.

"What is it--what is it?" she stammered; but he had found her lips at
last and was drinking unconsciousness of everything but the joy they
gave him.

She lingered a moment, caught in the same strong current; then she
slipped from him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled. Her
look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her
drowning in a dream: "You can't go, Matt! I'll never let you!"

"Go--go?" she stammered. "Must I go?"

The words went on sounding between them as though a torch of warning
flew from hand to hand through a black landscape.

Ethan was overcome with shame at his lack of self-control in flinging
the news at her so brutally. His head reeled and he had to support
himself against the table. All the while he felt as if he were still
kissing her, and yet dying of thirst for her lips.

"Ethan, what has happened? Is Zeena mad with me?"

Her cry steadied him, though it deepened his wrath and pity. "No, no,"
he assured her, "it's not that. But this new doctor has scared her about
herself. You know she believes all they say the first time she sees
them. And this one's told her she won't get well unless she lays up and
don't do a thing about the house--not for months--"

He paused, his eyes wandering from her miserably. She stood silent a
moment, drooping before him like a broken branch. She was so small and
weak-looking that it wrung his heart; but suddenly she lifted her head
and looked straight at him. "And she wants somebody handier in my place?
Is that it?"

"That's what she says to-night."

"If she says it to-night she'll say it to-morrow."

Both bowed to the inexorable truth: they knew that Zeena never changed
her mind, and that in her case a resolve once taken was equivalent to an
act performed.

There was a long silence between them; then Mattie said in a low voice:
"Don't be too sorry, Ethan."

"Oh, God--oh, God," he groaned. The glow of passion he had felt for her
had melted to an aching tenderness. He saw her quick lids beating back
the tears, and longed to take her in his arms and soothe her.

"You're letting your supper get cold," she admonished him with a pale
gleam of gaiety.

"Oh, Matt--Matt--where'll you go to?"

Her lids sank and a tremor crossed her face. He saw that for the first
time the thought of the future came to her distinctly. "I might get
something to do over at Stamford," she faltered, as if knowing that he
knew she had no hope.

He dropped back into his seat and hid his face in his hands. Despair
seized him at the thought of her setting out alone to renew the weary
quest for work. In the only place where she was known she was surrounded
by indifference or animosity; and what chance had she, inexperienced
and untrained, among the million bread-seekers of the cities? There came
back to him miserable tales he had heard at Worcester, and the faces
of girls whose lives had begun as hopefully as Mattie's.... It was not
possible to think of such things without a revolt of his whole being. He
sprang up suddenly.

"You can't go, Matt! I won't let you! She's always had her way, but I
mean to have mine now--"

Mattie lifted her hand with a quick gesture, and he heard his wife's
step behind him.

Zeena came into the room with her dragging down-at-the-heel step, and
quietly took her accustomed seat between them.

"I felt a little mite better, and Dr. Buck says I ought to eat all I can
to keep my strength up, even if I ain't got any appetite," she said in
her flat whine, reaching across Mattie for the teapot. Her "good" dress
had been replaced by the black calico and brown knitted shawl which
formed her daily wear, and with them she had put on her usual face and
manner. She poured out her tea, added a great deal of milk to it, helped
herself largely to pie and pickles, and made the familiar gesture of
adjusting her false teeth before she began to eat. The cat rubbed itself
ingratiatingly against her, and she said "Good Pussy," stooped to stroke
it and gave it a scrap of meat from her plate.

Ethan sat speechless, not pretending to eat, but Mattie nibbled
valiantly at her food and asked Zeena one or two questions about her
visit to Bettsbridge. Zeena answered in her every-day tone and, warming
to the theme, regaled them with several vivid descriptions of intestinal
disturbances among her friends and relatives. She looked straight at
Mattie as she spoke, a faint smile deepening the vertical lines between
her nose and chin.

When supper was over she rose from her seat and pressed her hand to the
flat surface over the region of her heart. "That pie of yours always
sets a mite heavy, Matt," she said, not ill-naturedly. She seldom
abbreviated the girl's name, and when she did so it was always a sign of
affability.

"I've a good mind to go and hunt up those stomach powders I got last
year over in Springfield," she continued. "I ain't tried them for quite
a while, and maybe they'll help the heartburn."

Mattie lifted her eyes. "Can't I get them for you, Zeena?" she ventured.

"No. They're in a place you don't know about," Zeena answered darkly,
with one of her secret looks.

She went out of the kitchen and Mattie, rising, began to clear the
dishes from the table. As she passed Ethan's chair their eyes met and
clung together desolately. The warm still kitchen looked as peaceful as
the night before. The cat had sprung to Zeena's rocking-chair, and the
heat of the fire was beginning to draw out the faint sharp scent of the
geraniums. Ethan dragged himself wearily to his feet.

"I'll go out and take a look around," he said, going toward the passage
to get his lantern.

As he reached the door he met Zeena coming back into the room, her lips
twitching with anger, a flush of excitement on her sallow face.
The shawl had slipped from her shoulders and was dragging at her
down-trodden heels, and in her hands she carried the fragments of the
red glass pickle-dish.

"I'd like to know who done this," she said, looking sternly from Ethan
to Mattie.

There was no answer, and she continued in a trembling voice: "I went to
get those powders I'd put away in father's old spectacle-case, top of
the china-closet, where I keep the things I set store by, so's folks
shan't meddle with them--" Her voice broke, and two small tears hung
on her lashless lids and ran slowly down her cheeks. "It takes the
stepladder to get at the top shelf, and I put Aunt Philura Maple's
pickle-dish up there o' purpose when we was married, and it's never been
down since, 'cept for the spring cleaning, and then I always lifted it
with my own hands, so's 't it shouldn't get broke." She laid the fragments
reverently on the table. "I want to know who done this," she quavered.

At the challenge Ethan turned back into the room and faced her. "I can
tell you, then. The cat done it."

"The cat?"

"That's what I said."

She looked at him hard, and then turned her eyes to Mattie, who was
carrying the dish-pan to the table.

"I'd like to know how the cat got into my china-closet"' she said.

"Chasin' mice, I guess," Ethan rejoined. "There was a mouse round the
kitchen all last evening."

Zeena continued to look from one to the other; then she emitted her
small strange laugh. "I knew the cat was a smart cat," she said in a
high voice, "but I didn't know he was smart enough to pick up the pieces
of my pickle-dish and lay 'em edge to edge on the very shelf he knocked
'em off of."

Mattie suddenly drew her arms out of the steaming water. "It wasn't
Ethan's fault, Zeena! The cat did break the dish; but I got it down from
the china-closet, and I'm the one to blame for its getting broken."

Zeena stood beside the ruin of her treasure, stiffening into a stony
image of resentment, "You got down my pickle-dish-what for?"

A bright flush flew to Mattie's cheeks. "I wanted to make the
supper-table pretty," she said.

"You wanted to make the supper-table pretty; and you waited till my back
was turned, and took the thing I set most store by of anything I've got,
and wouldn't never use it, not even when the minister come to dinner,
or Aunt Martha Pierce come over from Bettsbridge--" Zeena paused with a
gasp, as if terrified by her own evocation of the sacrilege. "You're a
bad girl, Mattie Silver, and I always known it. It's the way your father
begun, and I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my
things where you couldn't get at 'em--and now you've took from me the one
I cared for most of all--" She broke off in a short spasm of sobs that
passed and left her more than ever like a shape of stone.

"If I'd 'a' listened to folks, you'd 'a' gone before now, and this
wouldn't 'a' happened," she said; and gathering up the bits of broken
glass she went out of the room as if she carried a dead body...

The next morning, Ethan is feeling quite happy. He has a vision of what life could be like with Mattie. Ethan leaves for work and tells Mattie that he will be home for dinner. During the morning, everything that can possibly go wrong, does. Delayed by problems, Ethan decides to go to Starkfield to get the glue to mend Zeena's red dish after his mid-day meal. He wants to get home and mend the dish before Zeena's return. In the village, Ethan is further delayed when the first shop he tries doesn't have what he needs. He goes to Mrs. Homan's shop, purchases her last bottle of glue, and returns home as fast as possible. When Ethan arrives home, he shows Mattie the glue and intends to repair the dish but Mattie stops him. Zeena is home and is upstairs in her room. Ethan assures Mattie that he will mend the dish during the night so Zeena will not find out it was broken. Ethan invites Jotham Powell to supper, but to Ethan's surprise, Jotham declines the invitation. Ethan thought Jotham would be a restraining influence during the meal. Ethan considers Jotham's refusal to be a warning of Zeena's mood. When he returns to the house, Mattie's preparations for supper make it seem as warm and hospitable as the evening before. Ethan goes to the bedroom to see Zeena. Zeena informs Ethan that she has "complications": She is seriously sick. Ethan feels compassion for her believing that she may have a serious illness. Zeena informs Ethan that Dr. Buck has prescribed that she do no more work around the house and that she has hired a new girl to come and assume the household duties. Ethan is so shocked by the blow to his pocketbook that he does not think of the implications for Mattie. His anger is roused but in the argument that follows he is forced to admit lamely that he was unable to get the money from Andrew Hale. He realizes he has been caught in a lie. Zeena tells Ethan that the new girl will be arriving the next day and that Mattie will have to leave at once. Ethan leaves the bedroom and finds Mattie downstairs in the kitchen. Without explaining why, Ethan embraces and kisses Mattie, caught up in love for her and hate for Zeena. Ethan breaks the news to Mattie. When he considers what her plight will be when thrown on the mercies of the outside world, Ethan is moved to swear that he will reverse Zeena's decision. He stops speaking in mid-sentence when Zeena enters the kitchen. Zeena sits down at the table, eats, and converses about physical problems among her friends and relatives. After eating, Zeena complains that the meal has given her indigestion. She goes to get her heartburn medicine and discovers the broken red pickle dish. Zeena returns to the kitchen demanding to know how her dish broke. Mattie tells her the truth and Zeena scolds her. Zeena leaves the room carrying the pickle dish as if it were a dead body. This incident gives Zeena more justification for sending Mattie away.

Ethan's happiness after his evening with Mattie is a product of his self-deception. He still has not considered the implications of his love for Mattie. He fantasizes about the evening and still cannot bring himself to verbalize his feelings to Mattie. He sits and watches her do dishes. The imagery Wharton associates with Mattie continues to be that of warmth, life, and the spring and summer. The steam from the hot water has made Mattie's hair especially curly so that it resembles the "traveller's joy," a climbing vine also appropriately known as virgin's bowers. When Ethan returns to the farmhouse with the glue, Mattie's preparations for supper make the house seem as warm and hospitable as the previous evening. Dramatic irony is evident. Ethan and Mattie momentarily remember the happiness they shared the night before; however, their memories are a prelude to the anxiety and grief that is to come. Zeena's wish to have Mattie out of the house will destroy the false sense of security that Ethan has felt and will break the illusion that he and Mattie will be able to endure Zeena together. Ethan's confrontation with Zeena occurs in their bedroom; a room ruled by Zeena. It is important to note that in the bedroom Zeena has previously asserted herself over Ethan  and that Ethan thinks best when he is outside in the cold air. The imagery that Wharton associates with the confrontation between Ethan and Zeena is that of darkness. She uses words such as "dark," "obscurity," "dim," "twilight," and "darkness." Zeena is quite cunning about the way she asserts her dominance over Ethan. She tells him about her "complications," eliciting his compassion for her, then she resolutely informs him that she has hired a girl to do the housework. Ethan  feels guilty about the lie he'd told Zeena, and Zeena tells him they will be saving money on Mattie's keep. Zeena has conquered Ethan and he knows it. He attempts to change Zeena's mind by urging her to do the "right thing" . Zeena's authority prevails and she tells him the new girl will be arriving the next day. Ethan realizes his powerlessness and weakness. He finally sees clearly that Zeena controls him and what happens in the house. He sees her as an "alien presence," "an evil energy." Wharton points out Ethan's awareness that he is entrapped in a loveless marriage. She alludes to the notion that Ethan will not violate his marriage vows . Ethan becomes so angry with Zeena that he wants to strike her, but he backs down and leaves the room. Ethan knows that Zeena has complete control over him. When Ethan goes downstairs to eat dinner and reveal to Mattie that there is trouble, Wharton again makes use of imagery. Mattie's fear causes her eyelashes to beat against Ethan's cheek "like netted butterflies." Ethan speaks to Mattie "as if he saw her drowning in a dream." Their conversation has the effect of "a torch of warning" in a "black landscape." Ethan feels as intoxicated as when kissing Mattie, but at the same time he is "dying of thirst for her lips." These images used by Wharton are suggestive of captivity and death. The imagery is foreboding and foreshadows the tragedy that befalls Ethan and Mattie. As Ethan is in the midst of his manly defense of Mattie, Zeena enters the kitchen. Her entrance causes Ethan to stop speaking in mid-sentence: Zeena's dominance over Ethan is complete. Even after demonstrating his love for Mattie, he can not defend her in front of Zeena. Zeena sits at the table triumphant, smiling and flaunting her power over Mattie and Ethan. When she leaves the room to get her stomach medicine, Mattie and Ethan look at each other and "the warm still kitchen looked as peaceful as the night before." Ironically, the moment is the calm before the storm. Zeena finds the broken pickle dish and is visibly angered. Ethan once again becomes powerless when Zeena realizes he lied about the dish to protect Mattie. Ethan is unable to challenge Zeena, even to stand up for Mattie. Wharton foreshadows the smash-up as she describes Zeena carrying the pieces of broken pickle dish "as if she carried a dead body." Ironically, Zeena's concern will soon have to be for the broken bodies of Ethan and Mattie. Glossary milden to make or become mild sledge a sled or sleigh for carrying loads over ice, snow, etc. deigned condescended to do something thought to be slightly beneath one's dignity aver to declare to be true; state positively; affirm consecrated caused to be revered or honored felicitous used or expressed in a way suitable to the occasion; aptly chosen; appropriate; apt extry extra foist to get  accepted, sold, etc. by fraud, deception, etc.; palm off grudged felt a strong, continued sense of hostility or ill will against someone over a real or fancied grievance afore before inexorable that cannot be moved or influenced by persuasion or entreaty; unrelenting antipathy strong or deep-rooted dislike; aversion smote defeated, punished, destroyed, or killed compunction a sharp feeling of uneasiness brought on by a sense of guilt; remorse ingratiatingly so as to make acceptable; especially, so as to bring  into another's favor or good graces by conscious effort shan't meddle won't interfere rejoined joined together again; reunited evocation an evoking, or calling forth