“David!” she said, “David, is it you? I—I cannot see very well. Why did you not speak?” She looked at Lindy and smiled. “It is because I am an old woman, Lindy,” and she lifted her hand to her forehead. “See, my hair is white—I shock you, David.”
Leaning on my shoulder, she led me through a little bedroom in the rear into a tiny garden court beyond, a court teeming with lavish colors and redolent with the scent of flowers. A white shell walk divided the garden and ended at the door of a low outbuilding, from the chimney of which blue smoke curled upward in the evening air. Mrs. Temple drew me almost fiercely towards a bench against the adobe wall.
“Where is he?” she said. “Where is he, David?”
The suddenness of the question staggered me; I hesitated.
“I do not know,” I answered.
I could not look into her face and say it. The years of torment and suffering were written there in characters not to be mistaken. Sarah Temple, the beauty, was dead indeed. The hope which threatened to light again the dead fires in the woman's eyes frightened me.
“Ah,” she said sharply, “you are deceiving me. It is not like you, David. You are deceiving me. Tell me, tell me, for the love of God, who has brought me to bear chastisement.” And she gripped my arm with a strength I had not thought in her.
“Listen,” I said, trying to calm myself as well as her. “Listen, Mrs. Temple.” I could not bring myself to call her otherwise.
“You are keeping him away from me,” she cried. “Why are you keeping him away? Have I not suffered enough? David, I cannot live long. I do not dare to die—until he has forgiven me.”
I forced her, gently as I might, to sit on the bench, and I seated myself beside her.