"Now look here," said Mrs. Wadleigh, with rigor. "You take that chair, an' draw up to the fire. You do as I tell you!"
He did it.
"Now, I can't hender your goin', but if you do go, I've got a word to say to you."
"You needn't say it! I don't want nobody's advice."
"Well, you've got to have it jest the same! When you bile potaters, don't you let 'em run over onto the stove. Now you remember! I've had to let the fire go down here, an' scrub till I could ha' cried. Don't you never do such a thing ag'in, wherever you be!"
He could only look at her. This sort of woman was entirely new to his experience.
"But I've got somethin' else to say," she continued, adjusting her feet more comfortably. "I ain't goin' to turn anybody out into the snow, such a night as this. You're welcome to stay, but I want to know what brought ye here. I ain't one o' them that meddles an' makes, an' if you 'ain't done nothin' out o' the way, an' I ain't called on for a witness, you needn't be afraid o' my tellin'."
"You will be called on!" he broke in, speaking from a desperation outside his own control. "It's murder! I've killed a man!" He turned upon her with a savage challenge in the motion; but her face was set, placidly forward, and the growing dusk had veiled its meaning.
"Well!" she remarked, at length, "ain't you ashamed to set there talkin' about it! You must have brass enough to line a kittle! Why 'ain't you been, like a man, an' gi'n yourself up, instid o' livin' here, turnin' my kitchen upside down? Now you tell me all about it! It'll do ye good."
"I'm goin'," said the man, breathing hard as he spoke, "I'm goin' away from here tonight. They never'll take me alive. It was this way. There was a man over where I lived that's most drunk himself under ground, but he ain't too fur gone to do mischief. He told a lie about me, an' lost me my place in the shoe shop. Then one night, I met him goin' home, an' we had words. I struck him. He fell like an ox. I killed him. I didn't go home no more. I didn't even see my wife. I couldn't tell her. I couldn't be took there. So I run away. An' when I got starved out, an' my feet were most froze walkin', I see this house, all shet up, an' I come here."