hree, when he comes
home. He laid a eternal lot o' stuff on the kitchen table, without one
word, an' went in where she was. I heard paper rustlin', an' then I
heard her voice--an' it wasn't no cryin', lemme say. An' so I says to
myself, 'Well,' I says, 'she might as well hev a four-egg omelet,
because it'll be the last.' I knew if they's to arrest him she wouldn't
never live the day out. So I goes on with the omelet, an' when he come
out where I was, I just told him if he'd cut open the grapefruit I hed
ever'thing else ready. An' then he quit lookin' defiant, an' he calmed
down some; an' pretty soon we took in the dinner.

"She was sittin' up in front of her two pillows, pretty as a picture.
An' she was in one o' the things I ain't ever see outside a store
window. Lord! it was all the colour o' roses, with craped-up stuff like
the bark on a tree, an' rows an' rows o' lace, an' long, flappy ribbon.
She was allus pretty, but she looked like an angel in that. An' I says
to myself then, I says: 'If a woman _knows_ she looks like that in them
things, an' if she loves somebody an', livin' or dead, wants to look
like that for him, I want to know who's to blame her? I ain't--Peleg
Bemus, he ain't.' Mis' Loneway was as pretty as I ever see, not barrin'
the stage. An' she was laughin', an' her cheeks was pink-like, an' she
says,--

"'Oh, Mr. Bemus,' she says, 'I feel like a queen,' she says, 'an' you
must stay for dinner.'

"I never seen Mr. Loneway gayer. He was full o' fun an' funny sayin's,
an' his face had even lost its chalky look an' he'd got some colour, an'
he laughed with her an' he made love to her--durned if it wasn't enough
to keep a woman out o' the grave to be worshipped the way that man
worshipped her. An' when she ask' for the guitar, I carried out the
platter, an' I stayed an' straightened things some in the kitchen.
An' all the while I could hear 'em singin' soft an' laughin'
together ... an' all the while I knew what was double sure to come.

"Well, in about an hour it did come. I was waitin' for it. Fact, I had
filled up the coffee-pot expectin' it. An' when I heard the men comin'
up the stairs I takes the coffee an' what rolls there was left an' I
meets 'em in the hall, on the landing. They was two of 'em--constables,
or somethin'--with a warrant for his arrest.

"'Gentlemen,' says I, openin' the coffee-pot careless so's the smell
could get out an' circ'late--'gentlemen, he's up there in that room.
Ther