"So you're Kate," she lay against the bottom log of the wall, head back, eyes nearly shut, looking along her nose at me, "Carroty Kate."
Her own tawny hair, draggled, and hung in snakes, was streaked with dirty gray.
"Ye took Jesse," she said in weary scorn, "so I ruined him. Then this Brooke, he fell in love with yer, so I murdered him. Take everything, give nothin'; that's you, Carrots, give nothin'. That's you, Carrots, give nothin' away, not even a drink. And I gave everything.
"So you're good, and I'm bad; you're high-toned society, and I'm a poor sporting lady. Oh, I saw ye lift yer skirt away when yer passed me—calling yerself a Christian, when just one word of Christian kindness would have saved the likes of me.
"Ye needn't look over my head as if I wasn't there. I'm no fairy, I ain't—no dream. I'm facts, and ye'd better face 'em. 'Sisters of Sorrow' they calls us, who gave everything, who gave ourselves.
"And you good women pride yerselves in virtue, which ain't been tempted. Your virtue never been outdoors in the rain, gettin' wet. Your virtue never been starved and froze, or fooled and betrayed. Your colors ain't run, 'cause they've never been to the wash. You don't know good from evil, and you set thar judgin' me.
"Tears running down yer face, eh? You think you struck it rough when you came up agin me. Poor Carrots playin' Christian martyr. I done you good if you know'd it. I'm all the schoolin' you got in real life. I waked ye from dreams to livin'. And you an' me is women, sisters in pain. I wish'd I'd auburn hair like your'n, Kate, and a baby David to favor me with hair an' eyes. And if I'd had a home! But I didn't get a fair show ever, and every time I done good, I got it in the neck. Well, what's the odds?
"It wasn't you brung me down, Kate. Don't cry like that, dear. It don't matter. Nothing matters. It was this Brooke which done for me, not you or Jesse. Brooke's only a thing I took in like a lost dog 'cause he was hungry. He said he'd manage my business, and he shorely did—invested all I'd got in a governess, and a bonfire at Mathson's, and a stampede of mules. Then he fooled a widow down to Ashcroft to start him running a tourist joint, and I was to be turned out. And he fell in love with you.
"I guess that's all, excep' I got to tell you one thing. It was nursing the sick men kep' me straight all them years, kep' me from drink. You see I was meant for a nurse, trained for a nurse until—until—well, never you mind. Brooke stopped the nursing, and I drank. I'm only a nurse gone wrong.
"Yes, your eyes is wonderin' why they don't come back with them bandages, and the bath. Don't worry about that, 'cause I'll be dead by daybreak. Jesse loved yer. Brooke loved yer, and somehow, well, I'm kinder ranging that way myself. And if I go, you'll get back Jess, eh?"