“What?” Mason asked.
“I went up to that mountain cabin Tuesday, the sixth.”
“Why?” Mason asked.
“Just sentiment,” she said. “No one will believe me, no one would ever understand. I suppose you’d have to be in love to get my viewpoint anyway, and probably it has to be a love which comes after you’ve had one complete and utter disillusionment. Anyway, I went up there just because I’d been so happy there. I just wanted to go up and bask in the smell of the woods, in the sunshine and the aura of peace and tranquillity which surrounds the place. The chipmunks were so friendly, the bluejays so impudently inquisitive... I wanted to live over in my mind the happiness I’d had.”
“Why didn’t you tell that to the officers?”
“I just didn’t want to be made to appear ridiculous. It’s the same thing you have to contend with in love letters. They seem sacred and tender when you read them, but when they are read in court, they sound simply ghastly.”
“Someone saw you up there?”
“Yes, I was arrested for speeding. That is, the traffic officer says I was speeding. Personally, I think he just wanted to round out his day’s quota of arrests. It was a steep curve, and he claimed there was a limit of fifteen miles, and I was going twenty-five... Anyway, he took the number of my car, and gave me a traffic ticket to sign, and I signed it. They found out about that, and that puts me on the spot.”
“And how about the gun?” Mason asked.
“My husband asked me to get that gun for him.”