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He had thought the matter at first too dangerous to touch. Moreover, he was at that moment in a period of transition, pestered by Minta to give up "the poachin'," and yet drawn back to it after his spring and summer of field work by instincts only recently revived, after long dormancy, but now hard to resist. Presently he turned with anger upon one of Minta's wails which happened to reach him.
That same night he crept out again in the dark and the early morning, in spite of all Minta's tears and scolding. Well, what matter? As towards the rich and the law, he had the morals of the slave, who does not feel that he has had any part in making the rules he is expected to keep, and breaks them when he can with glee.
Father was right." The mother did not insist, and only said, "She, too, is my child. She is of your blood. We should forgive." Her mother was with her but a few weeks after this conversation. And, within two months after her funeral, an attack of pneumonia robbed Minta's already frail body of strength which might have come at that developing age. Much of the next eighteen months she spent in bed.
"To-day," whispered Mary, caressing Minta's hand, while the tears streamed down her cheeks; "he repented, Minta, and the Lord took him to Himself at once forgiving all his sins." Mrs. Hurd gave no sign, but the dark figure on the other side of the cottage made an involuntary movement, which threw down a fire-iron, and sent a start through Willie's wasted body.
"Is that tea?" he said, touching the tray. "Will you give me some?" Marcella went into the back kitchen and called Minta. While the boiling water was brought and the tea was made, Wharton sat forward with his face on his hands and saw nothing. Marcella whispered a word in Minta's ear as she came in.
For so long the poor child "couldn't eat no thin'," and when at last Minta's appetite returned, her loving black nurse would give her anything she wanted, and if the fever hadn't hopelessly damaged the little one's digestive glands, Mammy Lou's unfailing "l'il snacks for her honey-chile" would have completed the wreckage. At first the trouble was not noticed. Minta rarely spoke of suffering.
Marcella was vehemently sure that he was a charlatan that he got his living by a number of small dishonesties, that he had scented Minta's pension. But apart from the question whether he would make Minta a decent husband, or live upon her and beat her, was the fact itself of her re-marriage, in itself hideous to the girl. "Marry him!" she said. "Marry any one! Isn't it incredible?"
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