"Then," he said, "you'll have to talk to other folks you may not like so well. I shall complain of him. I shall be a witness to what I've seen and what you've told me. I've threatened you with that before, but now it's got to be done."
"No," said Tira, trying, he could see, through every fiber of will in her to influence him. But never by her beauty: she was game there. "You wouldn't tell what I've said to you. You couldn't. 'Twas said to you an' nobody else. It couldn't ha' been said to anybody else on this livin' earth."
Here was a spark of passion, as if she struck it out unknowingly. But he must not be moved, and by every means he would move her.
"What is there," he said, in the roughness of an emotion she saw plainly, "what is there I wouldn't do to save your life? To save you from being knocked about, touched"—he was about to add "violated," the purity of her seemed so virginal, but he stopped and she went on:
"It's just as I told you before. If they asked me questions, I should say 'twa'n't so. I should say you thought 'twas so, but 'twa'n't. I should say you wrote books an' you got up things, I guessed. It made you wrong in your head."
Old Crow! The innocent observers of his life and Old Crow's were in a mysterious conspiracy to prove them both unsound. He laughed out suddenly and she looked at him, surprised.
"Do you know why I would?" she continued earnestly. "Because he never'd overlook it in this world. If they hauled him up before a judge, an' you testified, the minute they let him go he'd take it out o' you. You'd be in more danger'n I be now. Besides, I ain't in any danger. I tried it this mornin' an' I found out." He sat with knitted brows and dry lips waiting for her to go on. "Last night," she said, "after you went down from the shack, I couldn't sleep. I never closed my eyes. But I wa'n't lonesome nor afraid. I was thinkin' o' what you said. He was there. Jesus Christ was there. An' I knew 'twas so because you said so. Besides, I felt it. An' 'long about three I got up an' covered the coals an' took baby an' come down along home. For, I says, if He was there with me in the shack, He'll go with me when I go, an' my place is to home. An' there was a light in the kitchen, an' I looked in through the winder an' Isr'el was there. He was kneelin' before a chair, an' his head was on his hands an' through the winder I heard him groan. An' I stepped in an' he got up off his knees an' stood lookin' at me kinder wild, an' he says: 'Where you been?' An' I says: 'No matter where I been. Wherever I been He's come home with me.' An' he says, 'He? Who is it now?' An' I felt as if I could laugh, it was so pleasant to me, an' seemed to smooth everything out. An' I says, 'Jesus Christ. He's come home with me.' An' he looked at me kinder scairt, an' says: 'I should think you was out o' your head.' An' I went round the room an' kinder got it in order an' brashed up the fire an' he set an' looked at me. An' I begun to sing. I sung Coronation—it stayed in my mind from the meetin'—I dunno when I've sung before—an' he set an' watched me. An' I got us an early breakfast an' we eat, but he kep' watchin' me. I'd ketch him doin' it while he stirred his tea. 'Twas as if he was afraid. I wouldn't have him feel that way. You don't s'pose he is afraid o' me, do you?"
This she poured out in a haste unlike her usual halting utterance. But there was a steadiness in it, a calm. He shook his head.
"No," he said. "I wish he were afraid of you." He wanted to leave her the comfort of belief and at the same time waken her to the actual perils of her life. "Tira," he said, looking into her eyes and trying to impress her with the force of his will, "he isn't right, you know, not right in his head, or he never would behave to you as he does. Any man in his senses would know you were true to him. He doesn't, and that's why he's so dangerous."
A convulsive movement passed over her face, slight as a twitching of muscles could well be. The sweat broke out on her chin.