He flung his eager queries at Mr. Dalton, and more gently pelted Joyce; and the one or two "boys," who had been admitted to his cell, departed with the dazed consciousness that, instead of finding out "all about it" from Nate, as had been their intention, he had kept them busy telling insignificant home events, until they were pumped dry of every drop of knowledge they possessed.
But when the door opened that gray morning, and a little figure swathed in black came slowly in, Nate scarcely moved. He sat still on his bunk, staring at her till she threw back the long veil, and said reproachfully,
"Nate!"
"Is it really you, Lucy?" he asked, slowly rising and making a step forward. "I never see you like this. I most thought 'twas your ghost. Set down, child. 'Tain't much of a place, but——" He drew out the one chair they allowed him in the narrow cell, and, as he placed it, Lucy caught his rough hand between her own.
"Nate, aren't you glad to see me?" she cried, fresh tears springing to her already overtaxed eyes.
He looked down at her, nodded gravely, and then laughed a little.
"Why, in course I'm glad, Lucy! You know that without tellin', don't ye? I ain't much on talkin', Lucy, but you know me."
Lucy stayed as long as they would let her, while Joyce and George sat on a stone bench in the corridor. The visit seemed short to them, but the turnkey was impatient long before the half-hour was up, feeling himself de trop all around. After the strangeness wore off, something of the old natural friendliness came back into Nate's manner, and Lucy's tears ceased to flow, as her tongue wagged ever more cheerfully.
They talked entirely about the little home-doings—Tilly's streak of facility in washing dishes without breakage; Rufie's month's record in school; the big baby's latest attempt at the English vocabulary; and the little baby's first tooth. Lucy told, too, of Joyce's kindness and constant oversight, and of Dalton's promise that her father's pay should not be stopped this quarter at least. Scarcely a word of the tragedy between them, or of the trial before Nate.
Just as she was leaving, however, she said timidly, "Shall I come in to it, Nate—the trial, you know?"