“I reckon you are a-thinkin’ to bide on here ‘long o’ we-uns an’ not carry her off nowhar else?” he asked gravely.

David’s paleness left him for a moment, as the warm tide swept upward from his heart. “My home is not in this country, and wherever a man goes, he expects to take his wife with him. Don’t you people here in the mountains do the same?”

“I reckon so, but hit would nigh about kill Azalie if she war to lose Cass. They have been frien’s evah sence they war littlin’s.”

“Hoke, if you were to find it necessary to go away anywhere, would you leave your wife behind to please Cassandra Merlin?” The man was silent, and David continued. “Before you were