“He ain’t in there,” she said, withdrawing her head, “and he never was in there, and you know it. Playin’ with my feelin’s, aire ye? And me a pore, lone woman! Well, now that’s what I’d expect of you, Persimmon Pete, and nothin’ else. You’ve hid him away, and aire laughin’ at me, thinkin’ it’s smart. But you’ll find I ain’t a lady to be trifled with. I want my husband.” She planted herself before the scout and flourished her ancient umbrella. “I want my ondutiful husband, and I want him this minute!”
The scout was too anxious and too greatly mystified to laugh.
“Madam, if I knew where he was, I shouldn’t turn him over to your tender mercies, but I don’t know where he is.”
“Do you mean to tell me he went into that room, and then drapped out o’ sight?”
“He did.”
She went to the door and looked in again.
“You used to tell some big lies, Persimmon Pete, when you was sellin’ that Injun medicine, that you said would cure about anything in creation; but you must have been practicin’ some lately, fer that’s the biggest lie that ever was told.”
“It looks it,” he admitted.
She glared at him in disbelief.
“I can’t stay to talk with you,” he added, “for I’m going to call for Latimer. He may be able to explain this thing. There must be a way out of that room which I know nothing about and cannot discover.”