“Oh, stealin’ gits found out. Ain’t we been robbed? Who stole our house and all my man’s earnin’s?”
“What is it you want, Susie?” He spoke timidly.
“I want a man as is a man, and ain’t afeard,—you ain’t him!”
“Didn’t I say I’d do ’most anything for you?”
“’Most anything!”
“Well, anything.” Then there was a moment of utter silence. “You wouldn’t go to want me to do nothin’ wrong.”
“Well, you are a fool! Ain’t folks lost in them woods sometimes, and never found?”
“I can’t do it,” said the man, hoarsely. “I said I couldn’t, and I can’t. I—I can’t,” and he was heard moving to and fro in the agitated indecision of a great temptation. Dorothy began to fear that she would come into view.
“I can’t,” he repeated.
“But he will,” murmured Dorothy, falling back noiselessly. Then, stepping through a break in the rotten boards of the shed, she bent low among the alders and fled. When away in the woods, she walked until she came again to Rose. “They’re in,” she said. “Mind, we’ve just come. Don’t let on I left you—hush—not now. There’s a reason. I can’t explain now. Come.”