"No, Colonel," says I; "you keep out of this."
"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't you my friend at all? Ain't I got a friend in all the world?"
"You're alderman here," I says, "and that's the same as being sher'f. When you was sher'f you couldn't do what the law said you couldn't—now could you? You have to keep up the law when you're a alderman or sher'f. With me, it's different. Besides, this is my job, not yours."
"Curly," says he, and I could see his jaw get hard all along the aidge, "Curly, ain't there no place on earth for a pore old broken-hearted man?"
"Never mind just yet, Colonel," says I. "It ain't your turn," says I—"that's all. Sometimes," I says to him, "it's best to go a little slow at first and not make no foolish breaks. Let's just take it easy till we see which way the cat has jumped—we don't know much yet."
"She—she wouldn't kill herself?" says he sudden; and he got even whiter.
"I don't think so," I says; "and I'll tell you why. I don't think she was thinking so much of dying when she said 'I am a woman.' It was life!"
He looked at me quiet.
"She said that?"
"Uh-huh!—sever'l times. And it was like you said, Colonel, after all. There ain't no fence high enough to keep a young man and a young woman apart. It was bound to come, and we didn't know it—that's all."