"'Blood!' groaned Lemon, 'Blood! O Fanny, Fanny!'
"He is my husband, sir, and he was suffering, and I ain't ashamed to say that I took him in my arms, and tried to comfort him.
"'One word, Lemon,' I said, 'only one word before we go on. You ain't guilty, are you?'
"'Guilty?' he answered, but speaking quite soft; we neither of us raised our voices above a whisper 'My God, no! How could I be? Wasn't I at home and abed when it was done? O, it's horrible! horrible! and I don't know what to think.'
"'Thank God, you're innocent!' I said, and I was so grateful in my heart that my eyes brimmed over. 'And you didn't have nothing to do with the planning of it? Tell me that.'
"'No, Fanny,' he said. 'Him up-stairs there--did he sleep at home last night?'
"'Unless there's something going on too awful to think of,' I said, 'he did. I ain't been in bed, Lemon, since home you come yesterday and had your fit. And here in this room I've been setting with you from the time I put the chain on the street-door last night till now. I've only left you once--to take in the milk at seven o'clock this morning, and then the chain was on; it hadn't been touched. No one went out of this house last night by the street-door.'
"'They couldn't have gone out no other way,' said Lemon.
"'I don't see how they could,' I said, though I had my thoughts.
"'And the night before, Fanny,' said Lemon, and now he looked at me as if life and death was in my answer, 'the night it was done, did he sleep at home then?'