"Then he broke down. 'It's Lovett,' he says, 'it's Lovett's done this—the assistant cashier. Maybe he's told some o' the other fellows at the desks next, an' they helped. They knew about her bein' sick. An' they can't none of 'em afford it,' he says, an' that seemed to cut him up worst of all. 'I'll give it back to him,' he says resolute. 'I can't take it from 'em, Peleg.'
"I says, 'Hush up, Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says. 'You got to think o' her. Take it,' I told him, 'an' thank God it ain't as bad as it was. Who knows,' I ask' him, 'but what the doctor might turn out wrong?'
"Pretty soon I got him to pull himself together some, an' I shoved him into the other room, an' I went with him, an' talked on like an idiot so nobody'd suspect—I didn't hev no idea what.
"She was settin' up in the same black waist, with a newspaper hung acrost the head o' the iron bed to keep the draught out. All of a sudden,—
"'John!' says she.
"He went close by the bed.
"'Is everything goin' on good?' she ask' him.
"'Everything,' he told her right off.
"'Splendid, John?' she ask' him, pullin' his hand up by her cheek.
"'Splendid, Linda,' he says after her.