For a moment the full force of such a supposition, with all its poignancy, its dramatic intensity, and its pathos, possessed the crowd.  In the momentary clairvoyance of enthusiasm they caught a glimpse of the truth, and by one of the strange reactions of human passion they only waited for a word of appeal or explanation from her lips to throw themselves at her feet.  Had she simply told her story they would have believed her; had she cried, fainted, or gone into hysterics, they would have pitied her.  She did neither.  Perhaps she thought of neither, or indeed of anything that was then before her eyes.  She walked erect to the door and turned upon the threshold.  “I mean what I say,” she said calmly.  “I don’t understand you.  But whatever just claims you have upon my husband will be paid by me, or by his lawyer, Captain Poindexter.”

She had lost the sympathy but not the respect of her hearers.  They made way for her with sullen deference as she passed out on the platform.  But her adversary, profiting by the last opportunity, burst into an ironical laugh.

“Captain Poindexter, is it?  Well, perhaps he’s safe to pay your bill; but as for your husband’s”—­

“That’s another matter,” interrupted a familiar voice with the greatest cheerfulness; “that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?  Ha! ha!  Well, Mrs. Patterson,” continued Poindexter, stepping from his buggy, “you never spoke a truer word in your life.—­One moment, Mrs. Tucker.  Let me send you back in the buggy.  Don’t mind me.  I can get a fresh horse of the sheriff.  I’m quite at home here.”  Then, turning to one of the bystanders, “I say, Patterson, step a few paces this way, will you?  A little further from your wife, please.  That will do.  You’ve got a claim of five thousand dollars against the property, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that woman just driving away is your one solitary chance of getting a cent of it.  If your wife insults her again, that chance is gone.  And if you do”—­

“Well?”

“As sure as there is a God in Israel and a Supreme Court of the State of California, I’ll kill you in your tracks!....  Stay!”

Patterson turned.  The irrepressible look of humorous tolerance of all human frailty had suffused Poindexter’s black eyes with mischievous moisture.  “If you think it quite safe to confide to your wife this prospect of her improvement by widowhood, you may!”

III.

Mr. Patterson did not inform his wife of the lawyer’s personal threat to himself.  But he managed, after Poindexter had left, to make her conscious that Mrs. Tucker might be a power to be placated and feared.  “You’ve shot off your mouth at her,” he said argumentatively, “and whether you’ve hit the mark or not you’ve had your say.  Ef you think it’s worth a possible five thousand dollars and interest to keep on, heave ahead.  Ef you rather have the chance of getting the rest in