"MARRY HER!" sings out the doctor, "but we WERE married."
"Dave," Colonel Tom says very slow and steady, "you keep SAYING you were married. But it's strange—it's right STRANGE about that marriage."
And he looked at the doctor hard and close, like he would drag the truth out of him, and the doctor met his look free and open. You would of thought Colonel Tom was saying with his look: "You MUST tell me the truth." And the doctor with his was answering: "I HAVE told you the truth."
"But, Tom," says the doctor, "that letter she wrote you from Chicago must—"
"Do you know what Lucy wrote?" interrupts Colonel Tom. "I remember exactly. It was simply: 'FORGIVE ME. I LOVED HIM SO. I AM HAPPY. I KNOW IT IS WRONG, BUT I LOVE HIM SO YOU MUST FORGIVE ME.'"
"But couldn't you tell from THAT we were married?" cries out the doctor.
"She didn't mention it," says Colonel Tom.
"She supposed that her own family had enough faith in her to take it for granted," says the doctor, very scornful, his face getting red.
"But wait, Dave," says Colonel Tom, quiet and cool. "Don't bluster with me. There are still a lot of things to be explained. And that marriage is one of them.
"To go back a bit. You say you got to the house somewhere around ten o'clock that evening and found Lucy gone. Do you remember the day of the month?"