g by which she could
recognize her handsome Bohemian neighbor. He seemed, somehow, not
altogether human. She did not know what to say to him.

"You do not feel hard to me, Frank?" she asked at last.

Frank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement. "I not feel
hard at no woman. I tell you I not that kind-a man. I never hit
my wife. No, never I hurt her when she devil me something awful!"
He struck his fist down on the warden's desk so hard that he
afterward stroked it absently. A pale pink crept over his neck and
face. "Two, t'ree years I know dat woman don' care no more 'bout
me, Alexandra Bergson. I know she after some other man. I know
her, oo-oo! An' I ain't never hurt her. I never would-a done
dat, if I ain't had dat gun along. I don' know what in hell make
me take dat gun. She always say I ain't no man to carry gun. If
she been in dat house, where she ought-a been--But das a foolish
talk."

Frank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had stopped
before. Alexandra felt that there was something strange in the way
he chilled off, as if something came up in him that extinguished
his power of feeling or thinking.

"Yes, Frank," she said kindly. "I know you never meant to hurt
Marie."

Frank smiled at her queerly. His eyes filled slowly with tears.
"You know, I most forgit dat woman's name. She ain't got no name
for me no more. I never hate my wife, but dat woman what make me
do dat--Honest to God, but I hate her! I no man to fight. I
don' want to kill no boy and no woman. I not care how many men
she take under dat tree. I no care for not'ing but dat fine boy
I kill, Alexandra Bergson. I guess I go crazy sure 'nough."

Alexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in Frank's
clothes-closet. She thought of how he had come to this country a
gay young fellow, so attractive that the prettiest Bohemian girl
in Omaha had run away with him. It seemed unreasonable that life
should have landed him in such a place as this. She blamed Marie
bitterly. And why, with her happy, affectionate nature, should
she have brought destruction and sorrow to all who had loved her,
even to poor old Joe Tovesky, the uncle who used to carry her about
so proudly when she was a little girl? That was the strangest thing
of all. Was there, then, something wrong in being warm-hearted
and impulsive like that? Alexandra hated to think so. But there
was Emil, in the Norwegian graveyard at home, and here was Frank
Shabata. A