Now it was early morning, and the
light of the August sun streamed through the window, but I, deeming
that my wife slept, still lay in the shadow of my dream as it were, and
groaned, murmuring the names of those whom I might never see again.
It chanced, however, that she was awake, and had overheard those words
which I spoke with the dead, while I was yet asleep and after; and
though some of this talk was in the tongue of the Otomie, the most was
English, and knowing the names of my children she guessed the purport
of it all. Suddenly she sprang from the bed and stood over me, and there
was such anger in her eyes as I had never seen before nor have seen
since, nor did it last long then, for presently indeed it was quenched
in tears.
'What is it, wife?' I asked astonished.
'It is hard,' she answered, 'that I must bear to listen to such talk
from your lips, husband. Was it not enough that, when all men thought
you dead, I wore my youth away faithful to your memory? though how
faithful you were to mine you know best. Did I ever reproach you because
you had forgotten me, and wedded a savage woman in a distant land?'
'Never, dear wife, nor had I forgotten you as you know well; but what
I wonder at is that you should grow jealous now when all cause is done
with.'
'Cannot we be jealous of the dead? With the living we may cope, but who
can fight against the love which death has completed, sealing it for
ever and making it immortal! Still, THAT I forgive you, for against this
woman I can hold my own, seeing that you were mine before you became
hers, and are mine after it.
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