Sibyl was altogether taken aback. “Do you supose it's true? Do you suppose she WOULDN'T?”
“He didn't look exactly like a young man that had just got things fixed up fine with his girl,” said Sheridan. “Not to me, he didn't!”
“But why would—”
“I told you,” he interrupted, angrily, “she ain't that kind of a girl! If you got to have proof, well, I'll tell you and get it over with, though I'd pretty near just as soon not have to talk a whole lot about my dead boy's private affairs. She wrote to Jim she couldn't take him, and it was a good, straight letter, too. It came to Jim's office; he never saw it. She wrote it the afternoon he was hurt.”
“I remember I saw her put a letter in the mail-box that afternoon,” said Roscoe. “Don't you remember, Sibyl? I told you about it—I was waiting for you while you were in there so long talking to her mother. It was just before we saw that something was wrong over here, and Edith came and called me.”
Sibyl shook her head, but she remembered. And she was not cast down, for, although some remnants of perplexity were left in her eyes, they were dimmed by an increasing glow of triumph; and she departed—after some further fragmentary discourse—visibly elated. After all, the guilty had not been exalted; and she perceived vaguely, but none the less surely, that her injury had been copiously avenged. She bestowed a contented glance upon the old house with the cupola, as she and Roscoe crossed the street.
When they had gone, Mrs. Sheridan indulged in reverie, but after a while she said, uneasily, “Papa, you think it would be any use to tell Bibbs about that letter?”
“I don't know,” he answered, walking moodily to the window. “I been thinkin' about it.” He came to a decision. “I reckon I will.” And he went up to Bibbs's room.
“Well, you goin' back on what you said?” he inquired, brusquely, as he opened the door. “You goin' to take it back and lay down on me again?”
“No,” said Bibbs.