She shook her head obstinately. "With white hair and wrinkles!"
"Well, there's more than white hair and wrinkles. I don't know what it is, but it's there," he answered, as he turned away and went out of the room.
In the morning she awoke with a feeling of despondency. Dread had come over her while she slept, and she felt it dragging at her memory after she had opened her eyes. Why had she yielded to that erratic impulse the evening before? Why had she allowed those two men to impose on her? "If is because I am a woman," she thought. "If I were a man, they would never have dared." Yes, John Abner was right (here was another instance of how right he so often was) and the county authorities had taken advantage of her weakness. "Well, I've let myself in for it now, and I'll have to go through with it," she said aloud, as she got out of bed and began dressing.
At breakfast, while she tried to eat and could not because of the lump in her throat, she reminded herself of her mother on the day of her journey to the Courthouse. "All I need is a crape veil and a handkerchief scented with camphor," she said, with a laugh.
"What are you talking about, Dorinda?" John Abner asked, with a frown.
"I was thinking of my mother. Poor Ma! She'd be living now if she hadn't worried so."
"Well, she'd be nearly a hundred, I reckon. And don't you begin worrying. Are you out of temper because you let those men put something over on you?"
"I don't know. It seems different this morning. I can't see why I did it."
"I heard the men talking about it in the barn. Somebody, the sheriff, I reckon, had told Martin Flower, and he said you'd bitten off more than you could chew."
Dorinda flushed angrily. "When I want Martin Flower's interference, I'll ask for it."