"Well, no, Charlotte. Don't deceive yourself about that. Nelson will feel your going, and for a time he'll take on something terrible. But he won't die of it. He comes of good long-lived stock, Nelson does, and though he's no boy, he's likely got twenty-five or thirty years ahead of him. And that brings me around to what was in my mind when I came over."

She relapsed into silence, studying a figure in the carpet, and apparently not quite certain how to continue. "Well?" questioned Mrs.

Richards, and for the first time during the interview there was a querulous note in her voice.

"It's about Nelson's future. Of course, as far as you're concerned, there's no reason to worry. There's some folks that are naturally const.i.tuted to enjoy Heaven, and there's others who seem to belong to this earth. Nelson's one sort and you're another." This time her pause was protracted.

"Well?" Mrs. Richards prompted feverishly. "Go on."

"I really don't know, Charlotte. Maybe I've been a little mite impulsive speaking out this way. Perhaps I'd better not say anything more."

"Anything more? You haven't said anything yet, as far as I can see,"

returned Mrs. Richards tartly. "Don't be mysterious, Persis."

"Well, for some days now, I've been deliberating opening up my mind to you. They do say that folks that are kind of on the border-line between the two worlds, can see things plainer than other people. But I won't say another word unless I get your solemn promise that what I tell you don't go any further."

"Of course I shall respect your confidence, Persis." Mrs. Richards swallowed impatiently. "I always tell Nelson everything, but except for him--"

"But Nelson's the very last one I want to hear this. Never mind, Charlotte. I see it was a crazy idea, my coming over this afternoon.

I don't know what got into me. We won't talk about it any more. Did those dahlias grow in your garden, Charlotte? They're the finest I've seen this year."

"Persis Dale, you certainly can be an aggravating woman when you try.

What about Nelson?"

"Do you promise you'll never breathe a word to any soul alive, least of all to Nelson himself?"

Mrs. Richards hesitated. But curiosity was not altogether foreign to her saintly nature, and Persis' reluctance to impart the confidence naturally increased her desire to hear it. "I promise," she agreed, with an effort to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

"Well, then, this is what I was coming at. Of course I see that as you lie here you're bound to be thinking about Nelson, and worrying over what's going to become of him while you're enjoying yourself on the other side."

"That is all arranged," Mrs. Richards interrupted. "His sister Hetty is coming to keep house for him."

"Hetty's no kind of companion for Nelson. He's a man who likes cheerful company, and Hetty's what I call a natural widow. You know some folks are born that way. They kind of hang crepe on everything they touch. Hetty drizzles tears as easy as a sponge."

"Well, really, Persis, as long as Nelson and I are satisfied with the arrangement I don't know as you have any call to trouble yourself."

Persis met the invalid's irritated protest with an air of disarming frankness.

"Of course you wouldn't see, and that's just what I'm coming at. I suppose Nelson has told you that he and I had a little boy and girl affair when we was both of us too young to know our own minds."

Mrs. Richards' incredulous gasp indicated with sufficient clearness that she had not been favored with her husband's confidence regarding that chapter in his past.

"You and Nelson?"

"Yes. Now, I don't mean, Charlotte, that we was ever engaged. Mother thought I was too young to have steady company, and Nelson was just a boy, and he took her snubbings to heart more'n he would have done if he'd been older."

"He's always given me to understand," said the wife with dignity, "that I was the only woman he ever cared for."

"I guess they generally say that, don't they, Charlotte? It's kind of like the 'honor and obey' in the marriage service. Women say it when they know they _can't_ honor and they _won't_ obey. It's just a form.

But as far as Nelson goes," explained Persis thoughtfully, "I dare say he could fix that up with his conscience without any trouble, seeing our sweethearting never got beyond a few kisses at the gate. He did give me a ring once, but 'twas nothing but carnelian. Land! Who'd think of that twice?"

Mrs. Richards, breathing hard, had no comment to offer on that delicate point.

"Now the case is just this." Persis spoke briskly. "After you're dead and gone, Nelson's bound to marry again. A widower just can't help himself. What with all the women scheming to catch him, he's got about as much chance as a potato-bug turned loose in a chicken-yard. Queer thing, the difference between bachelors and widowers," mused Persis, straying temporarily into generalizations. "By the time a bachelor's as old as Nelson, the women have kind of given up on him. But if a man's been married once it proves that he's got a soft spot somewhere, and all that's needed is for them to keep on trying till they find it.

But as I was saying. Charlotte, I thought that it might ease your mind to know that he ain't going to be allowed to throw himself away. While I don't want to seem boastful about it, I don't mind saying to you that there's not another woman in the town who would stand any show alongside me, if Nelson was free to pick and choose. And I'll give you my solemn promise that he shan't put anybody in your place that you'd be ashamed to acknowledge for your husband's second wife."

Forgetting her pitiful lack of strength, Mrs. Richards sat erect, her hollow cheeks aflame.

"Persis Dale, have you got the nerve to sit there and tell me to my face that you're going to set your cap for my husband after I'm dead?"

"Now lie down, Charlotte, till I explain." Persis' soothing tone suggested readiness to excuse the natural peevishness of an invalid.

"You mustn't go to exciting yourself, and hastening the end."

Mrs. Richards promptly resumed her rec.u.mbent position.

"I've talked plain to you, Charlotte," Persis said, "because you're not of the same clay as most women. You've always been wrapped up in celestial things since you was a girl. But a woman can't live with a man as long as you've lived with Nelson and not feel responsible for him. And I've told you this so there won't be a single shadow on your mind these last days. I'll look out for Nelson." She spoke with the air of one accepting a sacred trust.

"I never heard of such a thing," breathed Mrs. Richards from the pillows.

"Of course while you were living, Charlotte," Persis continued, as if the release so cheerfully antic.i.p.ated by the invalid had already been consummated, "I never should have allowed myself to think of Nelson twice. But I own I've blamed my mother more than once for sending him about his business the way she did. Nelson is a man in a thousand, steady and affectionate and a careful provider. If he's been so good to you, Charlotte, just think what the second wife has reason to expect!"

In m.u.f.fled tones Mrs. Richards confided to the pillow that never in all her life--and seemed unable to proceed further.

"Well, I must be going." Suiting the action to the words, Persis rose.

"Send for me any time, Charlotte. Ever since I heard about your state of health, I've felt drawn to you, same as if you were a sister. Mind, I'll drop my sewing and everything any time you want me. And as for Nelson's future, don't you give yourself an anxious thought about that."

"Good-by," said Mrs. Richard's faintly, and closed her eyes. And with a commiserative glance in which lurked a spice of humor, Persis withdrew. At the door she encountered Nelson Richards hurrying home early from his work to spend as much time as possible with his wife.

Anxiety had left its signature on Nelson's jovial face. He walked with dragging step and drooping shoulders, apprehension counterfeiting age.

But at the sight of Persis he roused himself from his customary abstraction.

"h.e.l.lo, Persis. Well, I declare you're a sight for sore eyes." He regarded her with frank admiration, an unconscious tribute to the effectiveness of the gray crepe. "Looks like you was renewing your youth," he continued with heavy gallantry. "Ain't seen you look so handsome since you was sixteen."

Persis had not invented the episode of Nelson's boyish admiration. In all important details she had held rigidly to the truth, though it is doubtful whether those innocent, s.e.xless kisses at the gate had been recalled in the past dozen years by either party to the transaction.

But it was true that Nelson Richards had always had a warm spot in his affections for his first sweetheart, and the cordiality of his greeting was by no means perfunctory.

Persis smiled upon him kindly.

"Thank you, Nelson. Wish I could say as much for you, but to tell the truth, you look to me a little peaked."

"Well, I have felt better." He lowered his big voice discreetly.

"Fact is I'm worried pretty near to death over Charlotte. What do you think about her, Persis? Doctor says he don't find nothing out of shape with her organs. Looks as if she'd ought to pick up, don't it?"

He swallowed hard as he put the question, his eyes eloquent with dumb misery, and Persis laid a friendly hand upon his arm as she answered with rea.s.suring certainty: "Don't you worry, Nelson. I feel it in my bones that Charlotte's going to be better before long."

"I'd as soon take your say-so as any doctor's." The big man looked at her gratefully. "Come in as often as you can, Persis. There ain't n.o.body we'd rather see."

He tramped into the house, armed in his splendid masculine obtuseness, stooped to kiss his wife's hot cheek, and said, as was inevitable, the last thing he should have thought of saying.

"Saw Persis Dale out here just now, and I'll be darned if she ain't getting better looking every day."