He waited for her to proceed. "I was with him and two others the night you found me. They left me on the sidewalk because I could not go further, I have been told. Goyle went away alone and snatched your watch."
"But, my gracious, how do you know? Did he tell you?"
"For some time he has been coming to see me. He was the first man I ever went with to—a place where I should not have gone. I blush to own it, but I was fascinated by him. He asked me to marry him, and I consented. The last time he came after that night was yesterday evening. But you had taught me to despise him. I could not drive him away, however, so I sat in the room with him. His mouth had been hurt—two of his teeth were gone. He said he had fallen off a car. He said also that as soon as he got a little better he was going to Michigan. He took out his watch, one that I had never seen him have before, and I noticed that it had a broken chain. Then I remembered seeing a broken chain hanging from your pocket; and the next morning before I left your house I thought I heard you tell someone that your watch had been snatched from you. I asked him to let me see the watch, and in it I found your name. I did not return it to him—I jumped up and ran out. He called after me, and tried to catch me, but I slammed a door in his face and locked it. Then, my mother, who never did like him, ordered him out of the house."
"What is your name?"
"Margaret Frayer."
"Then, Margaret Frayer, I am sorry you brought me the watch."
"Sorry?"
"I did not wish a reward for what I had done for you."
"Oh, that—the watch is not your reward. You have saved a soul. In my heart I believe that I have found peace. I went to sleep with a prayer on my lips, and I awoke with such a joy in my heart that I was frightened. I called mother and she came running into the room, and there must have been a spirit there, for before I said a word, and before mother had seen me, for it was dark, she cried out that I was saved. She had always been worried over me; she feared that my soul was lost. And she put her arms about me and sobbed in her happiness. That is your reward, Mr. Bradley."
"Come back to the house with me," he said.