The Broad Highway

"Then there will be no waiting for supper, and I am ravenous,

Peter!"

And as she led the way along the path she began to sing again.

Being come to the cottage, I set down my bars and brackets, with

a clang.

"These," said I, in answer to her look, "are the bars I promised

to make for the door."

"Do you always keep your promises, Peter?"

"I hope so."

"Then," said she, coming to look at the great bars, with a fork

in her hand, for she was in the middle of dishing up, "then, if

you promise me always to come home by the road, and never through

the coppice--you will do so, won't you?"

"Why should I?" I inquired, turning sharply to look at her.

"Because the coppice is so dark and lonely, and if--I say, if I

should take it into my head to come and meet you sometimes, there

would be no chance of my missing you." And so she looked at me

and smiled, and, going back to her cooking, fell once more

a-singing, the while I sat and watched her beneath my brows.

Surely, surely no woman whose heart was full of deceit could sing

so blithely and happily, or look at one with such sweet candor in

her eyes?

And yet the supper was a very ghost of a meal, for when I

remembered the man who had watched and waited, the very food grew

nauseous and seemed to choke me. "She's a Eve--a Eve!" rang a

voice in my ear; "Eve tricked Adam, didn't she, and you ain't a

better man nor Adam; she's a Eve--a Eve!"

"Peter, you eat nothing."

"Yes, indeed!" said I, staring unseeingly down at my plate, and

striving to close my ears against the fiendish voice.

"And you are very pale!"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Peter--look at me."

I looked up obediently.

"Yes, you are frightfully pale--are you ill again--is it your

head; Peter--what is it?" and, with a sudden, half-shy gesture,

she stretched her hand to me across the table. And as I looked

from the mute pity of her eyes to the mute pity of that would-be

comforting hand, I had a great impulse to clasp it close in mine,

to speak, and tell her all my base and unworthy suspicions, and,

once more, to entreat her pardon and forgiveness. The words were

upon my lips, but I checked them, madman that I was, and shook my

head.