Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/364

352 should n't be talkin' like that," she apologized. "I get few enough callers these days. Will yeh take a bit more sugar, sur—an' forget an ol' woman's blather. I 'm not mesilf this noon."

He took the sugar without a word, and drank down the tea in a gulp. She pressed him to take another cup, but he shook his head. "Thank yuh, ma'am," he said, wiping his mustache with a red cotton handkerchief. "I 'll say good-by to yuh, ma'am." He did not look at her.

She faltered: "I—I 've offinded yeh, thin?"

He went out without answering—without meeting her eyes. She stood a moment with the teapot in her hands; then she set it heavily on the table, and sank into a chair, staring, bewildered, at the closed door.

The meeting with him, and the excitement of his visit had been too much for her. She felt ill—and old. Her mouth weakened and drew down in the whimper of a child; the memories of the past which he had recalled, overcame her; she wept.

In the midst of it, she heard the door pushed open, and she checked herself quickly, looking up with a distorted face, unable to see for the tears in her eyes. "What is it?" she asked faintly.

"It 's me again," he said. "I been—lyin' to yuh. Jim Farrell was n't killed at Gettysburg. He 's—he's alive yet."

She got to her feet, blinking and wiping her cheeks. "Name of Hiven! Jimmy Farrell, d' yeh say?"

"He—he—"