"It's been going on quietlike for quite a while and I've been doing all I could to stop it. It begun maybe when she hauled him out of the lake--I don't know. They didn't meet often. I heard 'em talking once on the dock, and I told him I'd run him off if he come across the fence or said another word to her. She begged for him then; but I never promised her nothing. I knew it was my job as your foreman to take care of that, so I didn't go to you."

"Go on," says he. "Tell me!"

"She didn't say nothing to him for a long time--she didn't meet him, not after she said she wouldn't. Then he sent letters over--tied to the collar of our little dog--two or three letters; maybe four or five, for all I know. He was crazy over her. All the time he owned up to her and me that he oughtn't to do what he done. He said in his letters he oughtn't to raise his eyes to her--he knowed he ought to of come around to the front door and not to the back door; and he said that very thing. But he said, like a man will, that he couldn't help it.

"She didn't never answer his letters, so far as I know. I don't know as she ever got any word to him at all. So far as I know, they never did talk much, only that one time when I heard 'em. But, as to something going on--why, yes, it's been going on for quite a little while. And I've knew it; I've knew I ought to go and tell you. And all the time I couldn't, because I loved her and she ast me not to tell."

"Did she ever tell you anything? Do you think she cared anyway for him?

You see," he goes on, "I never seen him to know him. I don't know who he is. I didn't hardly know he was alive on earth. Gawd forgive me! I ought to of known. I told her once not to talk to that hired man; but if I'd thought anything of this I'd maybe of killed him then."

"Yes; and I ought to of told you, Colonel," says I. "It was only the way things happened and because she ast me not to."

"She had that secret from her father!" says he, slow. "Who can tell what's in a woman's heart?"

"That's it," says I; "now you got it. She was a woman--she told me so."

"What more did she say, Curly?"

"Once she come to me crying, and she says, 'Curly, I love him!'--she meant that man next door. And I know for sh.o.r.e now he wasn't fit to wipe her feet on."

Old Man Wright he set down then, quiet like. I couldn't help him none, I had to set and see him take it. It was awful.

"She said that--she loved him? How long ago?"

"A few weeks, maybe," says I. "I never could get the nerve to tell you then. I hoped she'd get to see how foolish it was for her to care for a cheap gardener--I thought she'd be too proud for that. And then I allowed she'd, like enough, marry Tom Kimberly, and that'd change her and it'd all come out all right. All the time I was hoping and trying to save both her and you. I been nigh about crazy, Colonel. And all the time, of course, I was only a d.a.m.n fool cowpuncher, without any brains."

"She's gone!" says he, after a time.

"Yes," says I; "near as I can figure, she's thought about it all night and concluded it'd be best for her not to marry Tom, feeling like she did about this other man. She's shook us, Colonel. But, believe me, she wasn't never happy doing that. It must of been like death to her."

"Why did she do it, Curly?" he whispered. "How could she? Why?"

"I done told you, Colonel," says I. "It was because she found she was a woman. She hadn't knew that before--nor us neither."

At length he got up, but he couldn't stand up straight.

"How can we keep this quiet?" says he.

We couldn't keep it quiet at all. It was all over the house right now.

That Annette girl had read all them Peanut letters before William ever got 'em. Like enough he'd read 'em too. They was scared when we walked into their part of the house.

"Where's that dog?" says Old Man Wright.

William, he got pale.

"Very good, sir," says he, and pretends to go after Peanut, which he knows wasn't there.

"Hi suppose she took 'im along with 'er, sir," says William after a while.

Annette she chips in:

"_Oui, oui_--yes, yes; she took him with her."

"Took him with her? What do you mean? What do you know about it? Keep quiet, you people!" says Old Man Wright. "Get into that room!" He locked them in.

"Now, Curly----" says he.

I knew he was clear in his own mind by now that the girl had run away with that gardener. He'd maybe go over there.

"No, Colonel," says I; "you keep out of this."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't you my friend at all? Ain't I got a friend in all the world?"

"You're alderman here," I says, "and that's the same as being sher'f.

When you was sher'f you couldn't do what the law said you couldn't--now could you? You have to keep up the law when you're a alderman or sher'f.

With me, it's different. Besides, this is my job, not yours."

"Curly," says he, and I could see his jaw get hard all along the aidge, "Curly, ain't there no place on earth for a pore old broken-hearted man?"

"Never mind just yet, Colonel," says I. "It ain't your turn," says I--"that's all. Sometimes," I says to him, "it's best to go a little slow at first and not make no foolish breaks. Let's just take it easy till we see which way the cat has jumped--we don't know much yet."

"She--she wouldn't kill herself?" says he sudden; and he got even whiter.

"I don't think so," I says; "and I'll tell you why. I don't think she was thinking so much of dying when she said 'I am a woman.' It was life!"

He looked at me quiet.

"She said that?"

"Uh-huh!--sever'l times. And it was like you said, Colonel, after all.

There ain't no fence high enough to keep a young man and a young woman apart. It was bound to come, and we didn't know it--that's all."

"We give her every chance. There was Tom."

"Yes," says I; "and there was the man next door. These things goes by guess and by Gawd. For instance," says I, "what in the world could Bonnie Bell's ma ever see in you, Colonel?"

That hit him hard, though I didn't mean it that way. He turned his face away, like he seen something awful before him.

"My Gawd!" says he. "I done that my own self! I stole her ma away. She loved me and I loved her. Ain't there no one to show a pore old helpless man what he ought to do?"

"It's life, and she showed us the way," says I. "When you stole Bonnie Bell's ma you was ready to meet her folks, I reckon, if they come to take her away. You taken your chance when you married her. So's the man that's run off with Bonnie Bell. Let him have a even break, Colonel. He loves her, maybe--and he seems to have a way with women."

"He's ruined her!" says Old Man Wright. "It's marriage he was after, of course; but look at the difference. I never touched a cent of her ma's money. We made our own way. But here's a low-down sneak that's come in at our back door and run away with my girl for her money! Don't you see the difference? What's this skunk like?" he says to me after a time.

"He ain't such a bad-looking fellow," says I, "if he was dressed up.

He's a sort of upstanding fellow. His clothes was always so dirty he didn't look like much. He was a good-talking fellow enough."

"They all are--the d.a.m.n fortune-hunting curs! I can believe that."