"What has she told?" asked Mrs. Smith, in her sweet and friendly voice.
"Why, she said she wouldn't set foot in this house if we all died."
"I never heard her say that, and I don't believe she ever did say it," said Mrs. Smith, firmly.
Emma's heart glowed with a swift rush of affection toward her sister and Mrs. Smith; she wanted to cry out her faith in Sarah, but she dared not.
Mrs. Harkey slammed the oven door viciously. "Well, you can believe it or not, just as you like; I heard her say it."
"Well, I didn't, so I can't believe it."
When Mrs. Smith came in, Emma was ready to weep, so sweet and cheery was her visitor's face.
She found no chance to talk with her, however, for Mrs. Harkey kept near them during her visit. Once, while Mrs. Jim ran out to look at the pies, Mrs. Smith whispered: "Don't you believe what they say about Sarah. She's just as kind as can be—I know she is. She's looking down this way every day, and I know she'd come down instanter if you'd send for her. I'm going up that way, and—"
She found no further chance to say anything, but from that moment Emma began to think of letting Sarah know how much she needed her. She planned to hang out the cloth as she used to. She exaggerated its importance in the way of an invalid, until it attained the significance of an act of treason. She felt like a criminal even in thinking about it.
Several times in the night she dreamed she had put the cloth out and that Jim and his wife had seen it and torn it down. She awoke two or three times to find herself sitting up in bed staring out of the window, through which the moon shone and the multitudinous sounds of the mid-summer insects came sonorously.