"I calc'late ye mean Mavin. Mean Mavin Newton?"
"Yes," she said, faintly.
"What if he did?" said Scattergood.
"I don't know.... Oh, I don't know."
"Want he should come back?"
"He—If he should come—"
"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Calc'late I kin appreciate your feelin's. Treated you mighty bad, didn't he?"
"He treated himself worse," said Mattie, with a little awakening of sharpness.
"So he done. So he done.... Um!... Eight year he's been gone, and you was twenty when he went, wa'n't ye? Twenty?"
"Yes."