He evidently did, for Mary was kept waiting ten minutes longer. Then the sullen virago appeared in the doorway. "Tobe wants you to come in and see 'im," she reluctantly announced.
Despite the feeling that she was unwelcomed by the woman, Mary saw no alternative but to go in. She regretted it the instant her eyes fell on the wasted form on the unkempt bed and beheld the eager orbs peering at her from deep, dark sockets beneath shaggy brows. The room seemed to swing around her, the crude board floor to rise and fall like the waves of a rocking sea, the bed to float like a raft holding a starving derelict. Grasping the back of a chair for support, Mary leaned on it for a moment, and then, slightly recovering, she sat down, wondering if she could possibly bear the impending ordeal.
"I'm glad you thought enough o' me to come, Miss Mary," Tobe began, in the instinctive tone of respect that his class had for hers, "an' I want to say something to you." He hesitated and lifted his eyes to his mother, who was standing at the foot of his bed. "Ma," he said, "will you please go out a little while—just a little while?"
"Me! Why, I'd like to know?" she fiercely demanded. "Surely you hain't got no secrets from me?"
"I hain't got no secrets, but I want to talk free an' easy like to Miss Mary, an' somehow when you stan' lookin' like that an' thinkin' what I know you are thinkin'—well, I just can't talk, that's all."
"Humph! I say! Well, this is a pretty come-off!" Mrs. Keith fairly quivered with suppressed rage. "Can't talk before me, eh? An' me your mother at that. Well, well, I won't hender you, though you know the doctor told me to keep you perfectly quiet, an' here you are—Well, well, I'll go; if you feel that-away I'll go! A mother's feelings is never paid attention to nohow."
Mary tried to protest, but could think of nothing to say under the circumstances; besides, the angry woman was already whirling away. Mary heard her treading the creaking boards of the adjoining room.
"Please move your chair up a little mite closer," Tobe requested. "I've got just so much wind, an' no more, an' I can talk easier when you are close to me."
She obeyed, feeling like an inanimate thing pushed forward by some designing force. His thin hand lay within her reach. It was a repulsive object, and yet the same force directed her to take it; she did so, and with the act all her fears, all her timidity, left her. She pressed it gently; she leaned forward and stroked it almost caressingly with her other hand. Tears welled up in her eyes; they broke their bounds and fell upon her hands and his. He stared in slow astonishment, his lower lip quivered; he closed his great, somnolent eyes as if to give himself up to the dreamlike ecstasy of the moment. She saw his breast shaking, his throat moving as if he were swallowing rising sobs. Silence fell, broken only by the creaking boards in the next room, the clucking of a busy hen in the yard, the chirping of little chickens, the thwacking of an ax at a wood-pile not far away. Tobe turned his face from her. She saw him stealthily wiping his eyes on a soiled handkerchief.
"I'm gittin' to be a fool, a babyish fool," he said, presently. "Lyin' here like this is calculated to make a feller that-away, an' you bein' so kind an' gentle, too, is—is sorter surprisin'. A sick man can hear a lot o' ridiculous things when he is down like this. You see, I'm surrounded mostly by women, an' they chatter a lot. Anyways, you hain't nothin' like most of 'em say you are—too proud an' stuck up even to inquire about a feller in my fix. Yes, I'm glad you come, so I am. I hain't heard anything lately but revenge! revenge! revenge! The idle women that huddle about me through the day talk hate from morning to night. They got Ma at it; she hain't that-away as a general thing. I wanted to see you. I've seen you at a distance an' always wanted to get a closer look. They all say you are pretty, an' so you are. By all odds, I should count you the prettiest young lady in this part o' the country. I know I hain't never seed one that could hold a candle to you. I want to talk to you about Ken an' Martin. Miss Mary, them boys hain't bad at heart. La! I used to love 'em both, an' they liked me, too! It was just rot-gut liquor. Mart didn't mean no harm by holdin' me when that scrimmage begun, an' Ken may have thought he saw a knife in my hand that I was about to stab into Martin. I understand that's what he claimed before they made off to the West, an' it all may be so, for a drunk feller will think all sorts o' things. I wanted to see you because, if I do peg out—an' it looks like I'm goin' to—I want you to write this to the boys. I want you to tell 'em, Miss Mary, that you saw me an' that Tobe Keith said he didn't bear no ill-will an' died without hard feelin's. Tell 'em, too, that I said I hoped they would show the law a clean pair o' heels, for it looks like they will have trouble if they are fetched back here. Oh, I'm sorry for 'em! I saw, while I was lyin' thar, how sorry them boys looked when they saw what had happened. It sobered 'em in a minute, an' they would have stayed to help me if their friends hadn't got scared an' told 'em to run, that the sheriff was comin', an' the like."