The other night as I lay watching her thus, and while the lower part of
the bed remained in deep shadow, I could see that the thin covering had
slipped aside, leaving Georgiana's feet exposed.

With a start of pain I recollected an old story about her childhood:
that one day for the sake of her rights she had received a wound in one
of her feet--how serious I had never known, but perhaps deforming,
irremediable. My head was raised on the pillow; the moonlight was
moving down that way; it would cross her feet; it would reveal the
truth.

I turned my face away and closed my eyes.




V

It is nearly dark when I reach home from town these January evenings.
However the cold may sting the face and dart inward to the marrow,
Georgiana is waiting at the yard gate to meet me, so hooded and shawled
and ringed about with petticoats--like a tree within its layers of
bark--that she looks like the most thick-set of ordinary sized women;
for there is a heavenly but very human secret hiding in this household
now, and she is thoughtfully keeping it.

"We press our half-frozen cheeks together, as red as wine-sap apples,
and grope for each other's hand through our big lamb's-wool mittens,
and warm our hearts with the laughter in each other's eyes. One
evening she feigned to be mounted on guard, pacing to and fro inside