One night while Abraham was sedulously searching under the beds, behind trunks, and everywhere for something belonging to him, he was deeply surprised to detect a loud grunt, indicating a burthen of both defiance and disgust, in the bosom of his hitherto wordless wife. He was even more surprised to see her go with a hasty shuffle to the wardrobe and show him that it had not been locked by throwing the door of it wide open.
With another most contemptuous grunt she resumed her seat and began to pat her foot on the floor vigorously, as if to vent her boiling spleen.
Abraham felt cold to his very marrow. She was then willing to remove every hinderance to his leaving, had, indeed, made an opening by which he could hasten his departure.
He approached the wardrobe slowly, casting helpless glances at Caroline’s heaving back. There among her gowns hung naught he could call his own save a soiled linen duster and his overcoat. With trembling fingers he took the duster from its hook, and stalked out into the night. Slowly he glided with bowed head toward his sister’s house. She sat in the doorway behind a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“Well,” said he almost in a whisper, “well, Marfy, dis trouble is mos’ over wid now. ’Twon’t be long ’fo’ I’ll come, now. I think I got de las’ thing ’cep’ er overcoat. Wid good luck I think I kin git dat ter-morrer night. Ter-night I hope you’ll ’low me ter sleep in yo’ company-room. I want ter let Ca’line en Asphy git use’n ter stayin’ in dat house alone.”
Martha rose and moved into the adjoining room to arrange his bed. Her movements betrayed high elation. Things had taken a shape at last that she had hardly hoped for. She lay awake until past midnight listening to Abraham’s creaking bedstead and gloating over the prospective triumph over her heretical sister-in-law.
The next morning Abraham ate his breakfast at Martha’s and went to work without going home. He thought that an additional twelve hours to Caroline’s suspense would do much toward showing her how desirable it was to have a man around the house. The ensuing day, be it said, was a long one to him, and he suffered more than he thought she did.
When he slouched into his cottage at dusk that day, he was shocked to see the inevitable wardrobe open. Indeed the door of that receptacle was frowningly held ajar by means of a stick of stovewood.