“You were not,” Hammer assured her. “A wife cannot rob her husband, Mrs. Chase. And then what did you do?”
“I went downstairs with that money in my hand and laid it on the kitchen table while I fixed my hat. It was dark in the kitchen, and when I was ready to go to meet Mr. Morgan in the place agreed on between us, I struck a match to find my way to the door without bumpin’ into a chair or something and making a noise that would wake up Joe.
“I didn’t know he was already up and watching for me to start. He was at the door when I opened it, and he told me to light the lamp. I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t want him to see me all dressed and ready to leave, and I wanted to try to slip that sack of money off the table before he saw it, too. He came in; I guess he put his hat down on the table in the dark, and it fell on top of the sack.
“When he lit the lamp in a minute you couldn’t have told there was anything under the hat unless you stood in a certain place, where it showed a little under the brim. Joe told me he knew all about Morgan and me, and that he’d sent him away. He said it was wrong for me to leave Isom; he said that Isom was better than Morgan, bad as he was.
“I flared up and got mad at Joe, but he was gentle and kind, and talked to me and showed me where I was wrong. 331 I’d kind of tried to make love to Joe a little before that,” she confessed, her face flushing hotly again, “before Mr. Morgan came, that was. I’ll tell you this so you’ll know that there was nothing out of the way between me and Joe.
“Joe didn’t seem to understand such things. He was nothing but a boy till the night Isom was killed. He didn’t take me up on it like Morgan did. I know it was wrong in me; but Isom drove me to it, and I’ve suffered for it–more than I can ever make you understand.”
She appealed to the judge in her manner of saying that; appealed as for the absolution which she had earned by a cruel penance. He nodded kindly, his face very grave.
“Yes, Mrs. Chase,” said Hammer. “And then what did you do next?”
“Well, while Joe was persuading me to go back to bed I put my arms around his neck. I wanted to smooth it over with him, so he’d go to bed first and I could take the money and put it back, for one thing; and because I really was sorry for what I’d done, and was ashamed of it, and felt lonesome and kicked out, and like nobody didn’t care.
“Isom came in and saw us standing there that way, with my hands on Joe’s shoulders, and he rushed up and said: ‘I’ll kill you!’ He said we was standing there hugging each other, and that we’d disgraced him; but that wasn’t so. It was all my fault, but Joe didn’t tell him that.”