“I can’t say it, sir,” answered the man.
“Then it is you who want me to see her?”
“Yes, sir; but I be sure she do want to see you. I know her way, you see, sir. She never would say she wanted anything in her life; she would always leave you to find it out: so I got sharp at that, sir.”
“And then would she allow she had wanted it when you got it her?”
“No, never, sir. She be peculiar—my wife; she always be.”
“Does she know that you have come to ask me now?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you courage to tell her?”
The man hesitated.
“If you haven’t courage to tell her,” I resumed, “I have nothing more to say. I can’t go; or, rather, I will not go.”