not, nuther, fur I dont respect you as much as I do a decent egg-suckin dog, but I was afraid folks would suspicion the pore Child’s secret, the secret that me an you an nobody else knows, that she took her own life to git out of the misery you put her in.  She did not want them to know, an they shall not; besides, thar are Folks in this cussed Settlement mean enough to begrudge her the grave Lot she has becase of what she was driv to.

“Thar is one thing I want you to stop.  I dont want you to hire Peter Slogan with Blood money, nur nobody else, to haul wood fur me.  I knowed you did send a load, fur he is too lazy to think of anybody but hisself without thar was money in it.  I accused him of it after I had toted the last Stick back to yore land whar he got it.  He tried to deny it, but I saw the lie in his face an shamed it.  Dont you bother about me.  I will live a powerful sight longer than you want me to before I am through with You.  You will never forgit how Sally died, ef you did not look at her pore little face in death nur help the neighbors fill her grave up.

“John Westerfelt, you killed my Child as deliberately as ef you had choked the life out of her with yore Bare hands.  You hung after her night and Day, even after she had been cautioned that you was fickle, an then when you got her whole soul an hart you deliberately left her an begun flyin around Liz Lithicum.  I know yore sort.  It is the runnin after a thing that amuses you, an as soon as you get it you turn agin it an spurn it under foot an laugh at it when it strugles in pain.  Lawsy me.  God Almighty dont inflict good men with that Disease, but you will have it nawin at yore Hart tel you run across some huzzy that will rule you her way.  Beware, John Westerfelt, you will want to marry before long; you are a lonely, selfish Man, an you will want a wife an childern to keep you company an make you forget yore evil ways, but it is my constant prayer that you will never git one that loves you.  I am prayin for that very thing and I believe it will come.  John Westerfelt, I am yore Enemy—­I am that ef it drags me into the Scorchin flames of hell.

“SUE DAWSON.”

He refolded the letter, put it with quivering fingers back into its envelope, and then opened the newspaper and held it before his eyes.  There was a clatter of dishes and pans in the back part of the house.  A negro woman was out in the wood-yard, picking up chips and singing a low camp-meeting hymn.  Now and then some one would tramp over the resounding floor, through the hall to the dining-room.

Harriet went to the door and closed it.  Then she turned to him.  The paper had slipped from his fingers and lay across his breast.

“What shall I get for your breakfast?” she asked.  She moved round on the other side of the bed, wondering if it was the yellow morning light or his physical weakness that gave his face such a depressed, ghastly look.