"I'm not afraid," Lucinda lied. Nevertheless, in compassion and dawning reassurance, she stooped, freed her skirts from the clutching hands, and stepped back. "Get up," she said, watchful. "Tell me plainly what you want...."
The woman scrambled to her feet again, cringing and fawning. "I had to come," she protested. "I didn't know where else to go, I had to know. Mrs. Druce: please tell me, is he.... Did I hurt him bad?"
"Desperately," Lucinda replied, wondering at the reserve of fortitude which enabled her to speak with such composure. "Whether he'll live or not we don't know yet. He was unconscious when I left, before the doctor came."
"You left him that way? You didn't wait to find out! O my God!"
"Are you reproaching me?" Lucinda retorted in amazement—"as if it were I who shot your husband!"
"My husband!" Nelly shrilled. "It's yours I'm talking about, it's Mr. Druce. It's not knowing how bad I hurt him that's driving me crazy ... not meaning to harm even his little finger, I hope to die! I didn't hardly know who he was, that time while we was fighting...." She drove her knuckles against her mouth again and sunk teeth into them till pain helped her reassert self-control. "I didn't know what I was doing!" she mumbled between sobs——"I didn't know."
"Do you know now?"
"Oh, I do, I do! I'm all right now, honestly I am. I know what I've done and what—what I've got to pay for doing it. But I don't care!" She jerked up her chin, bravado fighting with fear in her eyes. "Lynn only got what was coming to him. I warned him often enough, time after time I told him how it was all bound to end if he kept on like he was doing; but he wouldn't listen, he'd just laugh and tell me what I could do if I didn't like his ways.... I don't mean I threatened him, Mrs. Druce. It wasn't like that. I don't believe I ever dreamed of striking back at him before today. I always thought it would be some other woman would do it, somebody that didn't love him like I did, and couldn't stand being treated like a dog, just because he got tired—I always thought somebody like that would make Lynn pay, I never thought I'd have the nerve. But today, all at once, I couldn't seem to stand it any longer.... And when I looked in at that window and saw you alone with him, and him holding you in his arms, even if you did try to make him quit.... But I'm not sorry! Lynn never treated any woman so mean, and I guess it was right his punishment should come from me. I ain't a bit sorry, I hope he dies.... Do you—do you think he will?"
To the implicit hope that thus gave vaunted impenitence the lie, Lucinda returned, in a low tone and against her wish, the one word, "Probably...." and saw the woman quail and writhe away, twisting her thin, graceful hands into each other till their knuckles shone dead white through the tortured skin.
"I don't care," she wailed—"I don't! And anyway, it wasn't about him, it was Mr. Druce I came here to find out about. I couldn't go away without knowing.... He's been such a prince to me, a regular prince, and I never meant him any harm. It just makes me sick to think...." She swung passionately back to Lucinda. "Won't you please, please tell me how bad he's hurt?"