Apt to give ye mental cramps. What was that there tack hammer an
excuse for comin' here fer?"
"Is it true that _he's_ coming back, like the talk's goin' around?"
"I calc'late ye mean Mavin. Mean Mavin Newton?"
"Yes," she said, faintly.
"What if he did?" said Scattergood.
"I don't know.... Oh, I don't know."
"Want he should come back?"
"He--If he should come--"
"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Calc'late I kin appreciate your feelin's.
Treated you mighty bad, didn't he?"
"He treated himself worse," said Mattie, with a little awakening of
sharpness.
"So he done. So he done.... Um!... Eight year he's been gone, and you
was twenty when he went, wa'n't ye? Twenty?"
"Yes."
"Hain't never had a feller since?"
She shook her head. "I'm an old maid, Mr. Baines."
"I've heard tell of older," he said, dryly. "Wisht you'd tell me why you
let sich a scalawag up and ruin your life fer ye?"
"He wasn't a scalawag--till _then_."
"You hain't thinkin' he was accused of suthin' he didn't do?"
"He told me he took the money. He came to see me before he ran away."
"Do tell!" This was news to Scattergood. Neither he nor any other was
aware that Mavin Newton had seen or been seen by a soul after the
commission of his crime.
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