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Updated: June 15, 2025
The cat, who had been a puzzled observer of these unusual movements, jumped up into Zeena's chair, rolled itself into a ball, and lay watching them with narrowed eyes. Deep quiet sank on the room.
Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she married. But purchasers were slow in coming, and while he waited for them Ethan learned the impossibility of transplanting her.
The cat had sprung to Zeena's rocking-chair, and the heat of the fire was beginning to draw out the faint sharp scent of the geraniums. Ethan dragged himself wearily to his feet. "I'll go out and take a look around," he said, going toward the passage to get his lantern.
"It got about the next day," she went on, "that Zeena Frome had sent Mattie off in a hurry because she had a hired girl coming, and the folks here could never rightly tell what she and Ethan were doing that night coasting, when they'd ought to have been on their way to the Flats to ketch the train... I never knew myself what Zeena thought I don't to this day. Nobody knows Zeena's thoughts.
"I'm going to drive you over," he repeated; and she went into the kitchen without answering. At dinner Ethan could not eat. If he lifted his eyes they rested on Zeena's pinched face, and the corners of her straight lips seemed to quiver away into a smile.
Hale answered simply: "There was nowhere else for her to go;" and my heart tightened at the thought of the hard compulsions of the poor. "Yes, there she's been," Mrs. Hale continued, "and Zeena's done for her, and done for Ethan, as good as she could. It was a miracle, considering how sick she was but she seemed to be raised right up just when the call came to her.
He answered: "You needn't come round; I'm going to drive her over myself." He saw the rise of the colour in Mattie's averted cheek, and the quick lifting of Zeena's head. "I want you should stay here this afternoon, Ethan," his wife said. "Jotham can drive Mattie over." Mattie flung an imploring glance at him, but he repeated curtly: "I'm going to drive her over myself."
At first its weak flame made no impression on the shadows; then Zeena's face stood grimly out against the uncurtained pane, which had turned from grey to black. It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an irretrievable advantage in descending to the level of recrimination.
At length, without turning her head or lifting her lids, she said in a low tone: "It's not because you think Zeena's got anything against me, is it?" His former dread started up full-armed at the suggestion. "Why, what do you mean?" he stammered. She raised distressed eyes to his, her work dropping on the table between them. "I don't know. I thought last night she seemed to have."
Supper's been ready half an hour." Inside the room there was a moment's silence; then Zeena called out from her seat: "I'm not coming down to supper." "Oh, I'm sorry! Aren't you well? Sha'n't I bring you up a bite of something?" Ethan roused himself with an effort and opened the door. "Go along down, Matt. Zeena's just a little tired. I'm coming."
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