“And when I’ve got these nice calico frocks, and you can’t tell me from Jane, and I’m a good housekeeper, and settle down to be a farmer’s wife, maybe I’ll have a secret to tell you.”

“A secret?” he repeated gravely.  “Why not now?”

Her face was quite aglow with excitement and a certain timid mischief as she laughed:  “Not while you are so solemn.  It can wait.”

He looked at his watch.  “I must give some orders to Jim about the stock before he turns in,” he said.

“He’s gone to the stables already,” said Mrs. Rylands.

“No matter; I can go there and find him.”

“Shall I bring your boots?” she said quickly.

“I’ll put them on when I pass through the kitchen.  I won’t be long away.  Now go to bed.  You are looking tired,” he said gently, as he gazed at the drawn lines about her eyes and mouth.  Her former pretty color struck him also as having changed of late, and as being irregular and inharmonious.

As Mrs. Rylands obediently ascended the stairs she heaved a faint sigh, her only recognition of her husband’s criticism.  He turned and passed quickly into the kitchen.  He wanted to be alone to collect his thoughts.  But he was surprised to find Jane still there, sitting bolt upright in a chair in the corner.  Apparently she had been expecting him, for as he entered she stood up, and wiped her cheek and mouth with one hand, as if to compress her lips the more tightly.

“I reckoned,” she began, “that unless you war for forgettin’ everythin’ in these yer goings on, ye’d be passin’ through here to tend to your stock.  I’ve got a word to say to ye, Mr. Rylands.  When I first kem over here to help, I got word from the folks around that your wife afore you married her was just one o’ them bally dancers.  Well, that was your lookout, not mine!  Jane Mackinnon ain’t the kind to take everybody’s sayin’ as gospil, but she kalkilates to treat folks ez she finds ’em.  When she finds ’em lyin’ and deceivin’; when she finds em purtendin’ one thing and doin’ another; when she finds ’em makin’ fools tumble to ’em; playing soots on their own husbands, and turnin’ an honest house into a music-hall and a fandango shop, she kicks!  You hear me!  Jane Mackinnon kicks!”

“What do you mean?” said Mr. Rylands sternly.

“I mean,” said Miss Mackinnon, striking her hips with the back of her hands smartly, and accenting each word that dropped like a bullet from her mouth with an additional blow,—­“I—­mean—­that—­your—­wife—­had one—­of—­her—­old—­h
angers-on—­from—­’Frisco—­here—­in—­this very—­kitchen—­all—­the—­arternoon; there!  I mean that whiles she was waitin’ here for you, she was canoodlin’ and cryin’ over old times with him!  I saw her myself through the winder.  That’s what I mean, Mr. Joshua Rylands.”

“It’s false!  She had some poor stranger here with a lame horse.  She told me so herself.”

Jane Mackinnon laughed shrilly.