His fancy led him on and on to his
own torment. There was a bridal mist around Charlotte. He followed
the old courses of his own dreams, after his memories were passed,
and they caused him worse agony.
The next morning Barney went to the store. It was absolutely
necessary for him to go, but he shunned everybody. He had a horrible
fear lest somebody should say, "Hallo, Barney, know Thomas Payne's
goin' to marry your old girl?" He had planned the very words, and the
leer of sly exultation that would accompany it.
But he made his purchase and went out, and nobody spoke to him. He
had not seen Thomas Payne in the back part of the store behind the
stove. Presently Thomas got up and lounged leisurely out through the
store, exchanging a word with one and another on his way. When he got
out Barney was going down the road quite a way ahead of him. Thomas
Payne kept on in his tracks. There was another man coming towards
him, and presently he stood aside to let him pass. "Good-day, Royal,"
said Thomas Payne.
"Good-day, Thomas," returned the other. "When d'ye get home?"
"Day before yesterday. How are you this winter, Royal?"
"Well, I'm pretty fair to middlin'." The man's face, sunken in his
feeble chest far below the level of Thomas's eyes, looked up at him
with a sort of whimsical patience. His back was bent like a bow; he
had had curvature of the spine for years, from a fall when a young
man.
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