“What I've got to say to ye, Mrs. Wade,—as I reckon you be,—is strictly private and confidential! Why, ye'll see afore I get through. But I thought I might just as well caution ye agin our being disturbed.”
Overcoming a slight instinct of repulsion, Mrs. Wade returned, “You can speak to me here; no one will interrupt you—unless I call them,” she added with a little feminine caution.
“And I reckon ye won't do that,” he said with a grim smile. “You are the widow o' Pulaski Wade, late o' Heavy Tree Hill, I reckon?”
“I am,” said Mrs. Wade.
“And your husband's buried up thar in the graveyard, with a monument over him setting forth his virtues ez a Christian and a square man and a high-minded citizen? And that he was foully murdered by highwaymen?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Wade, “that is the inscription.”
“Well, ma'am, a bigger pack o' lies never was cut on stone!”
Mrs. Wade rose, half in indignation, half in terror.
“Keep your sittin',” said the stranger, with a warning wave of his hand. “Wait till I'm through, and then you call in the hull State o' Californy, ef ye want.”
The stranger's manner was so doggedly confident that Mrs. Wade sank back tremblingly in her chair. The man put his slouch hat on his knee, twirled it round once or twice, and then said with the same stubborn deliberation:—