He went out, and Miss Sally remained in a daze, looking at the door by which he had gone. She was still looking at it helplessly when Mrs. Tarbro-Smith came in with a swish of skirts and put her arm gently about her.
"DO you think you did what your heart told you to do, dear?" asked the lady from New York, kissing Miss Sally on the brow. "He was SO downcast. I really pitied him, poor man."
Miss Sally threw her arms around Mrs. Smith's waist and hit her face in the lacy softness of her gown, and wept. The authoress smoothed the brown hair and waited patiently for the tears to cease.
"Did you see Mr. Toole?" she asked brightly, to ease Miss Sally's weeping and to turn her thought to other things. "He wanted to see you about those fire-extinguishers. But I don't trust him. I think he has some plan or other that is selfish. I think he had been drinking."
Miss Sally's tears ceased, and she sat up, straight and severe.
"Yes," said Mrs. Smith; "he seemed to think Skinner or the Colonel or someone would want you to take them back. And return the money, I suppose."
"The money?" echoed Miss Sally slowly. She blushed as she saw that she had misunderstood the attorney, thinking he had dared to advise in her love matters, and then she frowned. "The money?" she repeated. "But I gave that money to pa. Pa won't ever give that money back, never! I don't know where on earth I'd ever get sixty dollars."
As she spoke she heard someone on the walk, and then the heavy feet of the Colonel climbing the porch steps. She heard him ask Susan if Miss Sally was inside, and heard the girl answer that she was, and she held Mrs. Smith's hand tighter.
"Come in," she called, to the knock on the door, and the Colonel stumped into the room. He was hot and angry, so angry that he did not stop to offer his usual curt greetings.
"Look here," he said, by way of introduction, "you an' your fire-extinguishers has got me into a purty fix, Sally Briggs--a blame purty fix-an' I want to know do you intend to git me out or not? I don't want no foolishness. Skinner is after me an' I've got to pay him back them sixty dollars, or somebody'll go to jail for it. You ought to have knowed them wasn't nothin' but lung-testers, afore you set me up to sellin' 'em to Skinner, an' not let me go an' make a 'tarnal fool out of myself. But that ain't the thing now; the thing is, will you pay back them sixty dollars? I guess you'd better do it, an' do it quick. Skinner'll have the law on ye if ye don't."