It was a direct question, and Jake's honest eyes were looking steadily at the Colonel, whose lips were white, and opened and shut two or three times before he answered, "I am nobody's husband, and never shall be. I knew your young mistress, and was interested in her, and shall care for the child. Don't ask me any more questions."
Up to this moment Jake had felt quite softened towards the man he had once thought to kill. But now he wanted to knock him down, but restrained himself with a great effort, and answered, "I axes yer pardon, but I'se allus thought so—an'—an'—I thinks so still."
To this there was no reply, and Jake, who had sent home his shaft, which he knew was making the proud man quiver, spoke next of a monument for Miss Dory, and asked where he'd better get it.
"Where you think best," the Colonel answered. "Only get a good one, and send the bill to me."
"Yes, sar; thank'ee, Mas'r," Jake said, beginning to feel somewhat less like knocking the Colonel down. "What shall I put on it?" he asked, and the Colonel replied, "What was on her coffin?"
"Jess 'Eudora, aged twenty.' I didn' know no odder name—las' name, I mean. I was shue 'twan't Harris."
"Put the same on the monument," the Colonel said; "and, Jake, keep the grave up. She was a good girl."
"Fo' de Lawd, I knows dat, an' I thank'ee, Mas'r, for sayin' dem words by de grave whar mabby she done har'em; thank'ee."
The tears were in Jake's eyes, as he grasped the Colonel's hand and looked into the face which had relaxed from its sternness, and was quivering in every muscle. The proud man was moved, and felt that if he were alone he would have knelt in the hot sand by Eudora's grave, and asked pardon for the wrong he had done her. But Jake was there, and the child looking on with wide-open eyes, and though she did not understand what was said she knew that Jake was crying, and charged it to the stranger—"the bad man, to make Shaky cry—I hates 'oo," she said, beginning to strike at him.
"Hush! honey, hush!" Jake said, while the Colonel began to feel the need of several hot-water bags as he went back to the house where Mandy Ann, remembering the hospitable ways at Miss Perkins's when people called, had set out for him the best the house afforded, including the china plate he remembered so well.