At the same time I knew, and Reverdy knew, that Lamborn was trying to
get Zoe to meet him. He had sent her a note to that effect, which Zoe
had turned over to me. Once he had accosted Zoe as she was coming from
Reverdy's to join me at the courthouse preparatory to starting home.
Reverdy thought that the fellow was eaten up with insane jealousy and
had brought himself to the belief that I had taken Zoe from him, if he
could be said ever to have had a right to her.
It is an April day and I have come into town and am rushing from place
to place attending to many things. Reverdy has met me at the bank to
tell me of another opportunity to buy a team of horses and some oxen;
for we use the latter mostly to draw the plows that turn up the heavy
sod of the prairie. Reverdy has just told me of Lamborn's threat to come
to my farm and take Zoe: that when a girl was once his she was always
his. He had said these things at the barber shop. Something came over
me. I resolved that this intolerable state of affairs, of anxiety for
Zoe, of misunderstanding for myself, of dread of the future, of a sort
of brake on my life as of something holding me back and impeding my
happiness and peace of mind ... all this had to end somehow and soon. I
could not live and go on with things as they were.
We stepped from the bank.
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