"I suppose so," like he was a very tired man.
"Anyhow," she went on, "he knew that we went first to Clarksville. He said:
"'You think you are married, Lucy, but you are not.'
"I wish you to understand that Prentiss McMakin did it all very, very well. That is my excuse. He acted well. There was something about him—I scarcely know how to put it. It sounds odd, but the truth is that Prentiss McMakin was always a more convincing sort of a person when he had been drinking a little than when he was sober. He lacked warmth—he lacked temperament. I suppose just the right amount put it into him. It put the devil into him, too, I reckon.
"He told me that you and he, Tom, had been to Clarksville, and had made investigations, and that the wedding was a fraud. And he told it with a wealth of convincing detail. In the midst of it he broke off to ask to see my wedding certificate. As he talked, he laughed at it, and tore it up, saying that the thing was not worth the paper it was on, and he threw the pieces of paper into the grate. I listened, and I let him do it—not that the paper itself mattered particularly. But the very fact that I let him tear it showed me, myself, that I was believing him.
"He ended with an impassioned appeal to me to go with him.
"I showed him the door. I pretended to the last that I thought he was lying to me. But I did not think so. I believed him. He had done it all very cleverly. You can understand how I might—in view of what had happened?"
I wanted to see Miss Lucy—how she looked when she said different things, so I could make up my mind whether she was forgiving the doctor or not. Not that I had much doubt but what they would get their personal troubles fixed up in the end. The iron grating in the floor was held down by four good-sized screws, one at each corner. They wasn't no filling at all betwixt it and the iron grating that was in the ceiling of the room below. The space was hollow. I got an idea and took out my jack-knife.
"What are you going to do?" whispers Martha.
"S-sh-sh," I says, "shut up, and you'll see."