Sally Dawson turned her head, and her eyes bore down desperately on the small face before her.
"Mother," she said, "you don't know what you'd do if you was in my place."
"I reckon not, darlin', but—"
"Mother, I'll die if I don't know the truth. Once he told me if I ever heard one word against him to come to him with it, and I said I would. Maybe Aunt Clarissa is right about Lizzie an' him, but I've got to get it straight from him. He went to town to-day, and always drives along the road about this time."
"Then I'll go out thar with you, Sally, if you will do sech a thing."
"No, you won't, mother. Nobody has any right to hear what I've got to say to him."
The old woman raised the corner of her gingham apron to her eyes as if some inward emotion had prompted tears, but the fountains of grief were dry.
"Oh, Sally," she whimpered, "I'm so miserable! I'll never forgive yore aunt fer devilin' you so much, right now when you are troubled. I'll tell you what me 'n' you'll do; we'll git us a house an' move away from 'er."
"I don't care what she says—if it's true," replied Sally. "If—if John Westerfelt has fooled me, I wouldn't care if it was printed in every paper in the State. If he don't love me, I won't care for nothin'. Mother, you know he made me think he loved—wanted me, at least—that was all I could make out of it."
"I was a leetle afeerd all along," admitted Mrs. Dawson. "I was afeerd, though I couldn't let on at the time. Folks said he was powerful changeable. You see, he has treated other gals the same way. Sally, you must be brave, an' not let on. Why, thar was Mattie Logan—jest look at her. Folks said she was a rantin' fool about 'im, but when he quit goin' thar she tuck up with Clem Dill, an' now she's a happy wife an' mother."