“I saw him first at Deep Gulch, where my father preaches once a month. He was very ill,” Elithe said, without a falter in her voice, although her heart was throbbing so she thought her interlocutor must hear it.
“Ill, was he, and you nursed him?”
Elithe did not think that a question, and did not answer until it was repeated; then she said: “If sitting by him all night, with Mrs. Stokes and my brother in the room, was nursing him, I did so. Yes.”
The red on her face was deepening, but her voice was still steady as the cross-examination proceeded:
“You sat with him all night, and after that you saw him often?”
“Yes, very often in Samona, when he came to the hotel.”
“He visited at your house on terms of intimacy?”
“Yes.”
“Was he respected in Samona?”
“Yes, highly respected, and in Deep Gulch, too. The miners worshipped him,” Elithe said, with energy.