"You left it all to me!" she cried. "Why couldn't you
speak a word?"

"I hadn't anything to say to him," replied Lapham sullenly.

They stood a while, without looking at the work which they
had come to enjoy, and without speaking to each other.

"I suppose we might as well go on," said Mrs. Lapham
at last, as they returned to the buggy. The Colonel drove
recklessly toward the Milldam. His wife kept her veil
down and her face turned from him. After a time she put
her handkerchief up under her veil and wiped her eyes,
and he set his teeth and squared his jaw.

"I don't see how he always manages to appear just at the
moment when he seems to have gone fairly out of our lives,
and blight everything," she whimpered.

"I supposed he was dead," said Lapham.

"Oh, don't SAY such a thing! It sounds as if you wished it."

"Why do you mind it? What do you let him blight everything for?"

"I can't help it, and I don't believe I ever shall.
I don't know as his being dead would help it any.
I can't ever see him without feeling just as I did
at first."