I spoke o’ this to ol’ Tank Williams, and he fired up at me as though I had poured red pepper in the nose of a sleepin’ cripple. “You’re a nice one, you are!” sez he. “I’d sooner fill myself with alcohol and die in a stupor than to call up The’s past at such a time as this. You ought to be ashamed o’ yourself.”
The’ was no way to make Tank see what I meant so I sent him in to set with The a while, and took a little walk up the ravine. Every step I took brought some memory o’ the time The and Horace and I had first started to find out about the woman; and it wasn’t long before I was ready to turn back.
Janet was quite strong by this time, though she still had to wear a bandage; and after supper, the Friar took her in to see Promotheus. He had told her all about him, and she was mighty sorry to think ’at his end was near. She didn’t recall havin’ been kind to him when he was playin’ cripple; but the Friar had told her about this, too. Horace had told the Friar about what Ty had said, and it had cut him purty deep; but he had braced up better ’n we expected. We didn’t any of us know what effect bringin’ Janet in sight o’ Ty would have, and when she came into the mess-hall, we watched purty close.
Ty sat propped up, with his clenched hand restin’ outside the blanket, and an expression on his face like that of a trapped mountain-lion. He glared up at her as she came near; but she only looked at him with pity in her eyes, and she didn’t seem to recognize him, at all—just looked at him as though he was a perfect stranger which she was sorry for, and Tank, who was settin’ next me, gave me a nudge in my short ribs, which was about as delicate as though it had come from the hind foot of a mule. “Well?” I whispered. “What do ya mean by that?”
“Couldn’t ya see ’at she didn’t know him?” sez Tank.
“That’s nothin’,” sez I. “He knew her all right.”
“Yes, but Great Scott,” sez he, “a man can’t claim that a woman’s his wife if she don’t know him, can he?”
“Pshaw,” sez I, “if you’d settle things that way, the’ wouldn’t be any married people left. The’ ain’t one woman in fifty ’at knows her husband, and the’ ain’t any men at all who know their wives.”
“You’re just dodgin’ the question,” sez Tank. “I claim that if a man marries a woman when she’s out of her mind, he ain’t got any claim on her when she gets back into her mind again.”
“Look here, Tank,” sez I; “you’ve never had much experience with the world, ’cause every time you went where experience was to be had, you got too intoxicated to take notice; but I’m tellin’ you the truth when I say that if women didn’t sometimes get out o’ their right minds, they wouldn’t get married at all.”