Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.
With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud.
"'I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours—MARTHA."
She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.
"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.
Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its habitual level.
"You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I'm not the other things you have called me to your shame—not mine. But I bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a Christian woman, trying to do my duty."
"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.
"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband's unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm over, ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They're from letters I wrote to—another man."
Still Sam did not flinch.