"She hed steppt out afore this happened, owin' to contrairy opinions betwixt me and her.

Ye mout hev noticed, Mr.Ford, that gin'rally she didn't 'pear to cotton to ye! Thar ain't a woman a goin' ez is the ekal of Blair Rawlins' darter in nussin' a man and keeping him in fightin' order, but in matters like things that consarn herself and Cress, I begin to think, Mr.Ford, that somehow, she ain't exakly--kam! Bein' kam yourself, ye'll put any unpleasantness down to that.

Wotever you hear from HER, and, for the matter o' that, from her own darter too--for I'm takin' back the foolishness I said to ye over yon about your runnin' off with Cress--you'll remember, Mr.Ford, it warn't from no ill feeling to YOU, in her or Cress--but on'y a want of kam! I mout hev had MY idees about Cress, you mout hev had YOURS, and that fool Dabney mout hev had HIS; but it warn't the old woman's--nor Cressy's--it warn't Blair Rawlins' darter's idea--nor yet HER darter's! And why?
For want o' kam! Times I reckon it was left out o' woman's nater.

And bein' kam yourself, you understand it, and take it all in." The old look of drowsy pain had settled so strongly in his red eyes again that the master was fain to put his hand gently over them, and with a faint smile beg him to compose himself to sleep.

This he finally did after a whispered suggestion that he himself was feeling "more kam." The master sat for some moments with his hand upon the sleeping man's eyes, and a vague and undefinable sense of loneliness seemed to fall upon him from the empty rafters of the silent and deserted house.