'Twas a family weakness which
had been kept out of William's knowledge while he was courting; but
marriage and the cares of childer and so on, had woke a thirst in Daisy
that made her difficult. So William weren't in a mood to lighten up for
Jonas, and he said that figures can't lie and the loan must run its
appointed course if it took ten years to do so. He'd got the whip-hand, no
doubt, because it weren't a subject for any other ear, though Jonas, in
his despair, did once think of going to parson with it. But the thought of
laying bare the past and seeing parson's scorn was more than he could
face, and he hid it up.
At last, however, he felt the tax past bearing, for it was making an old
man of him; and then he braced himself and called on his Maker to see him
through and done the wisest thing that ever he had done. In a word, he
told Milly. He told her when they'd gone to bed one Christmas night and
unbosomed his troubled mind. He'd paid William another fifty only the week
night before and, as he presently confessed to Milly, 'twas the last straw
that broke his back and sent him to throw himself on her mercy.
He bade her list, then told the tale from the beginning, told it honest
without straining truth in any particular. And Milly listened and said not
a word till he was done.
"So there it is," finished Jonas--"a choice of evils for me 'twixt
stripping up the past afore your eyes and letting William bleed me to my
dying day seemingly.
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