“And, yes—yes—I did too,”
she answered. “I used to make tea just at
that time and sit there for a whole hour.”
“And didn’t you sit close to the partition
on your side? Sometimes I was sure of it.
I could even fancy that I could hear your dress brushing
against the wall-paper close beside me. Didn’t
you sit close to the partition?”
“I—I don’t know where I sat.”
Old Grannis shyly put out his hand and took hers as
it lay upon her lap.
“Didn’t you sit close to the partition
on your side?” he insisted.
“No—I don’t know—perhaps—sometimes.
Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, with a little gasp,
“Oh, yes, I often did.”
Then Old Grannis put his arm about her, and kissed
her faded cheek, that flushed to pink upon the instant.
After that they spoke but little. The day lapsed
slowly into twilight, and the two old people sat there
in the gray evening, quietly, quietly, their hands
in each other’s hands, “keeping company,”
but now with nothing to separate them. It had
come at last. After all these years they were
together; they understood each other. They stood
at length in a little Elysium of their own creating.
They walked hand in hand in a delicious garden where
it was always autumn. Far from the world and
together they entered upon the long retarded romance
of their commonplace and uneventful lives.
That same night McTeague was awakened by a shrill
scream, and woke to find Trina’s arms around
his neck. She was trembling so that the bed-springs
creaked.
“Huh?” cried the dentist, sitting up in
bed, raising his clinched fists. “Huh?
What? What? What is it? What is it?”
“Oh, Mac,” gasped his wife, “I had
such an awful dream. I dreamed about Maria.
I thought she was chasing me, and I couldn’t
run, and her throat was—Oh, she was all
covered with blood. Oh-h, I am so frightened!”
Trina had borne up very well for the first day or
so after the affair, and had given her testimony to
the coroner with far greater calmness than Heise.
It was only a week later that the horror of the thing
came upon her again. She was so nervous that
she hardly dared to be alone in the daytime, and almost
every night woke with a cry of terror, trembling with
the recollection of some dreadful nightmare. The
dentist was irritated beyond all expression by her
nervousness, and especially was he exasperated when
her cries woke him suddenly in the middle of the night.
He would sit up in bed, rolling his eyes wildly, throwing
out his huge fists—at what, he did not
know—exclaiming, “What what—”
bewildered and hopelessly confused. Then when
he realized that it was only Trina, his anger kindled
abruptly.
“Oh, you and your dreams! You go to sleep,
or I’ll give you a dressing down.”
Sometimes he would hit her a great thwack with his
open palm, or catch her hand and bite the tips of
her fingers. Trina would lie awake for hours
afterward, crying softly to herself. Then, by
and by, “Mac,” she would say timidly.
