"'Lucretia,' I said. 'Of course, Gott, dear heart, dear heart, that is my name—your name for me.'
"He tried to faint again, but the Tennessee whiskey stood staunch. So he threw up his hands with a little happy, pitiful gesture, and again lost his voice!
"After awhile I said to him: 'I am going to scold you, dear Gott; I am going to take better care of you. You have been sitting up all night writing and you are tired.'
"'Oh, no,' he said; 'oh, no. I began to write a few hours ago. It is now tea time. Won't you take tea with me?'
"Jack, it was pitiful. I thought I'd take him in my arms and kiss him then and there—just make him my own—only I was afraid the shock might kill him! I must do it gradually. So I went on humoring him. 'Sure, Gott, dear, old, precious Gott,' I said. 'Sure, it is just tea time, and I'm going to sit out on the little porch under the wisteria vine and the stars. Won't you come with me, precious?'
"Jack, it proved near being fatal. He tried to speak, but had only a kind of a gurgling spasm of a breath, panted violently, and turned red.
"I let that soak in and got up and got busy. I thought if anything in the world would fetch him, or any man, it would be to see a good-looking woman, in a white apron, with rosy cheeks and eyes full of fun, buzzing around in his old bachelor's den getting him a meal that was worth while.
"Poor old Gott! The disease of thirty years' standing had nearly ruined him!
"I cooked him one of my famous steaks, Jack; you know how. Skillet red hot, a little butter on it, then drop the steak on, and, as quick as it sears on that side, over it goes on the other, and quick again back, and so on, holding the juice in rich and sweet. And the tea, Jack, the rare old china I had brought in my saddle-bags, too; and the omelet; if anything in the world would put heart into a man!
"Eat it? You should have seen the dear old sweetheart. It almost made me cry. God only knows when he'd had a meal before. I found out afterwards that he had been writing two days, Jack, and then thought every day was to-morrow!