Bonnie Bell went pale as a sheet when she read that.
"Curly," says she, "I never saw it before."
I believed her. She'd of died rather 'n lie straight out to me. Maybe she'd lie some—almost any woman would—but not straight out from the shoulder between the eyes. So I believed her now.
"Read the next one," says I.
"Have you read my letters, Curly?" says she. She looked at me savage now.
"I read one of 'em," says I, "and part of the next one. I didn't only read the first page on that one. I didn't read the other one at all. But I read enough."
On the first page of this second letter was something more:
I've waited and waited [it said]. I ought never to have met you as I did—I ought never to have said what I did. I am in the deepest distress over all this, for I would not be guilty of an act to cause you pain. How could I when I——
Right there's where the first page ended and the second page begun.
"Did you read it all, Curly?" says she to me once more.