The girl looked at him imploringly, with elbows bent but hands stretched towards him, as if she were suing for forgiveness. The man was seated on a stool, waiting for her answer.
“Yes, it was an accident––a terrible accident,” sobbed Madge, whose strength and courage seemed to leave her suddenly. “You––you believe me, don’t you?”
It is hard to say whether it was weakness or the excess of her emotion that forced her down to her knees. She grasped one of the huge hands the man had extended towards her. He laid the other upon her bent back, very softly.
“In course I do, you poor leetle leddy. Yes, I sure beliefe you. Dere vosn’t anybotty vould hurt Hugo, unless dey vos grazy, you bet. He ban a goot friend to me––ay, he ban a goot friend to all peoples.”
He helped her up, very tenderly, and made her sit on a stool close to the one he occupied. There was a very long interval of silence, during which his great face and beard were hidden in the hollow of his hands. Then he spoke again, in a very low voice, as if he 239 had been addressing the smallest of his own babes.
“You poor leetle leddy,” he repeated, “I feels most turriple sorry for Hugo, for it most tear my heart out yoost to look at him. But vhen I looks at you I feels turriple sorry for you too. I knows vhat it must be, sure ting, for a leetle leddy like you to be sittin’ here, in dis leetle shack, a-lookin’ at de man she lofe an see de life goin’ out of him. Last fall Hugo ban gone a vhiles back East again, and vhen you comes I tank mebbe you some nice gal he promise to marry. Even vhen de telegraft come I make sure it is so. I pring de bit paper here myself an’ vaits a vhiles, but he no come and I haf to go on. I vanted to see de happy face on him. I say to myself, ‘Hah! You rascal Hugo, you nefer tell nodding to your ole friend Stefan, but he know all de same.’ But vhen I got to go I couldn’t say nodding. I leaf de paper on de table here an’ I tank how happy he is vhen he come home an’ find it. You poor leetle leddy!”
The man was mistaken, most honestly so, for no idea of love had ever entered Hugo’s head, and none had come to Madge. Yet the big fellow’s words seemed to stab the girl to the heart and she moaned. She felt that she 240 could not allow Hugo’s friend to remain undeceived. There had been already too many mysteries, too many lies––she would have no share in them if she could help it.
“I––I wasn’t in love with him when I came, Stefan,” she faltered. “He––he was a stranger to me. I had never seen him––never in all my life. I came here because––because there has been some terrible mistake––in some letters, queer letters that bade me come here and––and meet a man who wanted a wife. And I––I was a poor miserable sick girl in New York and––and I just couldn’t keep body and soul together anymore––and––and be a good decent girl. And those letters seemed so beautiful that I felt I must come and see the man who wrote them, and––and I was ready to marry him if he would be kind to me and––and treat me decently and––and keep me from starvation and suffering. And when I came here he didn’t know anything about it, and––and I thought he lied. But––but I never thought to do him any harm. I took the little pistol out of the bag, because I was looking for something else, and it went off! Oh!”
She hid her face in her hands, as if the whole scene had been again enacted before her, and the man heard her sobbing.