"You are mistaken, Mrs. Dawson."
"How about the one at the hotel that nussed you through yore sick spell?"
"There is nothing between us." He hesitated, then added: "Nothing at all, nor there never will be."
"You say thar hain't, but that don't prove it. I want to lay eyes on her; I can tell ef you have been up to yore old tricks when I see 'er. Ef she's got a purty face you have."
He made no reply.
She hitched her burden up on her left hip and curved her body to the right. "I'm a-gwine to put up thar, an' I'll see. The Bradleys 'll think quar ef I don't put up with them, I reckon; but I'm gwine to try hotellin' fer once. Right now it's in my line uv business. Good-mornin'; I don't owe you anything—nothin' in the money way, I mean. Ah! you think I'm a devil, I reckon; well, you made me what I am. I'm yore work, John Westerfelt!"
He stood in the stable door and watched the little bent figure walk away. He saw her pass the cottages, the store, the bar, and enter the hotel; then he went through the stable into the back yard and stood against the wall in the warm sunlight. He didn't want Washburn to come to him just then with any questions about business. A sudden, startling fear had come to him. He was going to lose Harriet now, and through Mrs. Dawson, and it would be the just consequences of his early indiscretion.