He swallowed hard as he put the question, his eyes eloquent with dumb misery, and Persis laid a friendly hand upon his arm as she answered with reassuring certainty: "Don't you worry, Nelson. I feel it in my bones that Charlotte's going to be better before long."
"I'd as soon take your say-so as any doctor's." The big man looked at her gratefully. "Come in as often as you can, Persis. There ain't nobody we'd rather see."
He tramped into the house, armed in his splendid masculine obtuseness, stooped to kiss his wife's hot cheek, and said, as was inevitable, the last thing he should have thought of saying.
"Saw Persis Dale out here just now, and I'll be darned if she ain't getting better looking every day."
"I can't see that that's enough to excuse profanity," said Mrs.
Richards witheringly. "Persis Dale is a coarse scheming creature."
Then as her husband burst into astonished protests, she showed signs of
hysteria.
"Oh, of course you'll stand up for her. I wouldn't have expected anything else. You go out to the ice-chest, Nelson Richards, and heat up that cup of beef tea you set away last night." Left to herself she lay back upon the pillows, gazing at the ceiling with vindictive eyes.
"As long as she hasn't got the decency to wait till I'm in my grave," said Mrs. Richards tearfully, "I'll fool her. I'll show her there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip."
CHAPTER XII
A CONFESSION TOO MANY
People were talking. That system of wireless telegraphy which ante-dates Marconi's invention by ten thousand generations, had done effective service. In the remotest farm-houses it was known that Justin Ware had called on Persis Dale twice within a week. He came between half past eight and nine, so said reliable rumor, and the lateness of the hour of his arrival as well as of his departure, made only too plain the relaxing influence of city life on country-bred standards.