"I suppose I'd better throw a little fuel into this engine of
mine. It's been going hard for several days."
He ate like a wolf. I cut half a loaf into slices for him, and he
drank the rest of the tea. Mr. Reynolds creaked up to bed and left him
still eating, and me still cutting and spreading. Now that I had a
chance to see him, I was shocked. The rims of his eyes were red, his
collar was black, and his hair hung over his forehead. But when he
finally sat back and looked at me, his color was better.
"So they've canned him!" he said.
"Time enough, too," said I.
He leaned forward and put both his elbows on the table. "Mrs. Pitman,"
he said earnestly, "I don't like him any more than you do. But he
never killed that woman."
"Somebody killed her."
"How do you know? How do you know she is dead?"
Well, I didn't, of course--I only felt it.
"The police haven't even proved a crime. They can't hold a man for a
supposititious murder."
"Perhaps they can't but they're doing it," I retorted. "If the woman's
alive, she won't let him hang.
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