But the kneeling woman went on exactly as though she had not heard. "You mustn't strike him. If anything should happen----" she hesitated. "My little boy----"
She stole a look over her shoulder at the angry man.
The Mexican woman's doubled fist came down, unclinched and became fingers, which fumbled at her kitchen apron. "Is your young son dead, señora?" she asked, in an awed voice.
The girl whom he addressed shivered, caught the boy in her arms, and sobbed wildly: "No, no--not dead, I wish he were. I wish I were dead!"
The man leaned down and lifted her bodily to her feet. "Here," he said, pushing her not overgently back into the chair, "you sit down and get your nerves quiet." He turned almost savagely to Huldah Sarvice, demanding: "There is surely some place you can give us where my wife can be alone. You see how it is here."
Huldah nodded, looking at her visitor with shrewd, kindly eyes. "I 'spect your wife"--she put a little stress on the two words, and the girl winced, her pale face reddening--"I jest think she's better off here among people."
The man made a muttered objection, but Huldah went serenely on: "My lodgin' rooms is acrost the street, and I don't know's I've got a vacant one. They's a man with a broken leg in one of 'em, an' a feller that's been drinkin' a little too much is in another. Two more of 'em is locked up by the men that rents 'em. Best sit here till I can git you a little supper; mebby that'll cheer her up some."
All the time she talked, Aunt Huldah had been watching the little woman's face and behavior, which were those of a creature under some desperate pressure; and as she concluded and turned back to her fire building, she made her decision. "That man--husband or not--has done something that she's knownst to. He's a gambler; mebby he's knifed some feller acrost the cards; mebby he's gone further. But my guess is that she knows of some crime he's done, an' he's hangin' onto her for fear she'll tell."
She rose from the now kindled fire for another covert survey of her guests, who were deep in a whispered conference. "Yes, and she'd jest about do it, too. She wants to give him away." Again, after a moment of keen observation on her way to the kitchen, she added: "An' he knows it."