But the man followed behind her. She knew he followed behind her as she went soberly and modestly down the way and she was afraid not to do what she had said she would, and so she went to a small silver shop she knew and stood at the silversmith’s counter and asked to see his pins of brass, washed with silver. And while she waited she toyed a moment with some silver earrings that were there and suddenly the agent came up while she toyed and he pretended he did not know her and he said to the silversmith, “How much are these earrings?”
Then the silversmith said, “I will weigh them to see how much silver is there, and then will I sell them to you honestly and fairly by what they weigh.”
And the silversmith let the pin wait a while, seeing this man was clad in silk and a better purchaser, doubtless, than this countrywoman in her blue cotton coat. So the woman could only stand and turn her head away from those bold secret eyes and the man stood indolently waiting as the silversmith put the rings upon the little scales.
“Two ounces and a half,” the silversmith said in a loud voice. Then lowering his voice he added coaxingly, “But if you buy the earrings for your good lady, then why not add a pair of rings? Here are two to match the earrings, and it will all be a fine gift, suited to any woman’s heart.”
The man smiled at this and he said carelessly, “Add them, then.” And then he said laughing, “But they are not for a wife—the wife I had died a six-month ago.”
The silversmith made haste to add the rings, pleased at so fine a sale, and he said, “Then let them be for the new wife.” But the man said no more but stood and stared and smoothed his lip. Not once did this man show he knew the countrywoman was there. He took the rings when they were wrapped and went away. But when he had turned his back the mother sighed and watched him half jealous for the one he had bought the trinkets for, such things as she would have loved and in her girlhood had often longed to have. And indeed they were the very things she had said her husband bade her buy with the silver she spent, and the gossip often asked these days, “Where are those rings you said you have? Let me see what their pattern is.” And the mother was often hard put to it and she said, “The silversmith is making them,” or “I have put them in a certain place and I have forgot where they are for the moment,” and many such excuses had she made until this last year when the gossip had said with how great malice, “And do you never wear those rings yet?” and then the mother answered, “I have not the heart and I will put them on the first day he comes home.”
So when she had bought the pin and slipped it through her coil of hair, she turned home again thinking of the dainty silver things and she sighed and thought she had not heart to take her hard-earned silver and buy herself a toy, after all, seeing that doubtless it mattered to no one how she looked now, and she would let be as she was. Thinking thus and somewhat drearily, she wound her way out of the city gate and upon the narrow country road that branched off to the hamlet from the highway, and she thought of home and of the comfort of her food when she was there, the only comfort now her body had.
Suddenly out of the twilight of the short winter’s evening there stood the man. Out of the twilight he stood, sudden and black, and he seized her wrist in his large soft hand and there was no other soul near by. No, it was the hour when countrymen are in their houses and it was cold and the air full of the night’s frost and such a time as no one lingers out unless he must. Yet here was he, and he had her wrist and held it and she felt his hand on her and she stood still, smitten into stillness.
Then the man took the small parcel of silver he had and with his other hand he forced it into her hand that he held, and he closed her fingers over it and he said, “I bought these for none other than for you. For you alone I bought them. They are yours.”
And he was gone into the gathering shade under the city wall, and there was she left alone, the silver trinkets in her hand.
Then she came to herself and she ran after him crying, “I cannot—but I cannot—.”
But he was gone. Although she ran into the gate and peered through the flickering lights that fell from open shops, she could not see him. She was ashamed to run further into the town and look at this man’s face and that in the dim light, and so she stood, uncertain and ashamed, until the soldiers who guarded the city gate called out in impatience, “Goodwife, if you are going out this gate tonight go you must because the hour is come when we must close it fast against the communists, those new robbers we have these days.”
She went her way then once more and crossed the little hill and down into the valley, and after a while she thrust the trinkets in her bosom. The moon rose huge and cold and glittering as soon as the sun was set, and when she came home the children were in their bed, and the old grandmother asleep. Only the lad lay still awake and he cried when his mother came, “I was afraid
