She owns up she has lost it a long while ago. And when she lost it, she says, she knowed that was fate and that our love was omened in under an evil star. And who was she, she says, to struggle agin fate?
"Martha," I says, "I'll be honest with you. Fate got away with my half too one day when I didn't know they was crooks like her sticking around."
Well, I seen that girl seen through me then. Martha was awful smart sometimes. And each one was so derned tickled the other one wasn't going to do any pining away we like to of fell into love all over agin. But not quite. Fur neither one would ever trust the other one agin. So we felt more comfortable with each other. You ain't never comfortable with a person you know is more honest than you be.
"But," says Martha, after a minute, "if you didn't come back to make me marry you, what does Doctor Kirby want to see Miss Hampton about? And who was that with him?"
I had been nigh to forgetting the main thing we had all come here fur, in my gladness at getting rid of any danger of marrying Martha. But it come to me all to oncet I had been missing a lot that must be taking place inside that house. I had even missed the way they first looked when she met 'em at the door, and I wouldn't of missed that fur a lot. And I seen all to oncet what a big piece of news it will be to Martha.
"Martha," I says, "they ain't no Dr. Hartley L. Kirby. The man known as such is David Armstrong!"
I never seen any one so peetrified as Martha was fur a minute.
"Yes," says I, "and the other one is Miss Lucy's brother. And they are all three in there straightening themselves out and finding where everybody gets off at, and why. One of these here serious times you read about. And you and me are missing it all, like a couple of gumps. How can we hear?"
Martha says she don't know.
"You THINK," I told her. "We've wasted five good minutes already. I've GOT to hear the rest of it. Where would they be?"