“What do you mean by coming to me like this?” demanded Miss Campbell.
“Your daughter, she try cut my throat this morning with same. I take revenge,” answered Mrs. Lupo between her sobs.
“Nonsense! Absurd!”
“She have dislike me from first,” went on Mrs. Lupo, who seemed to eliminate all articles from her conversation. “She joke at me. She buy berries of girl I hate.”
Miss Campbell leaned against the rail and watched the woman crouched at her feet like a whipped dog. Only an instant did she allow the thought to come to her that she was alone in camp with a half-crazed savage.
“She is a very weak, pitiable object,” she said to herself. “I must manage her and I shall. I am not afraid.”
Suddenly she leaned over and put her hand very softly on the woman’s shoulder.
“I am so sorry for you,” she said. “Won’t you let me help you? I think you are much too fine and capable to fly into rages like this. What is the reason of it?”
“Not know,” answered Mrs. Lupo. “When they come, I see red. I wish to break up—kill.”
“Do you love your husband?”