"She don't care," she said to herself. "Much difference it makes to her
whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when she was a girl."

Then she looked again, and she wasn't so sure; in fact, she hadn't at
any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. She had that shrinking
manner, and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into
things.

"This all you was to take in?" asked Mrs. Hale.

"No," said the sheriff's wife; "she said she wanted an apron. Funny
thing to want," she ventured in her nervous little way, "for there's not
much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to
make her feel more natural. If you're used to wearing an apron--. She
said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes--here they
are. And then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door."

She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading upstairs, and
stood a minute looking at it.

Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman.

"Mrs. Peters!"

"Yes, Mrs. Hale?"

"Do you think she--did it?"

A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters' eyes.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, in a voice that seemed to shrink away from
the subject.

"Well, I don't think she did," affirmed Mrs. Hale stoutly. "Asking for
an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin' about her fruit."

"Mr. Peters says--." Footsteps were heard in the room above; she
stopped, looked up, then went on in a lowered voice: "Mr. Peters
says--it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a
speech, and he's going to make fun of her saying she didn't--wake up."

For a moment Mrs. Hale had no answer. Then, "Well, I guess John Wright
didn't wake up--when they was slippin' that rope under his neck," she
muttered.

"No, it's _strange_," breathed Mrs. Peters. "They think it was such
a--funny way to kill a man."

She began to laugh; at sound of the laugh, abruptly stopped.

"That's just what Mr. Hale said," said Mrs. Hale, in a resolutely
natural voice. "There was a gun in the house. He says that's what he
can't understand."

"Mr. Henderson said, coming out, that what was needed for the case was a
motive. Something to show anger--or sudden feeling."

"Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here," said Mrs. Hale. "I
don't--"

She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye was
caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she
moved toward the ta