"It's a dern short fifteen minutes," I thinks to myself. "That perfessor must of put more science into Henry's pill than he thought he did fur it to of knocked him out this quick. It ain't skeercly three minutes."When Henry falls the woman staggers and tries to throw herself on top of him. The corners of her mouth was all drawed down, and her eyes was turned up. But she don't yell none. She can't.
She tries, but she jest gurgles in her throat. The perfessor won't let her fall acrost Henry. He ketches her. "Sit up, Jane," he says, with that Estelle look onto his face, "and let us have a talk."She looks at him with no more sense in her face than a piece of putty has got. But she can't look away from him.
And I'm kind o' paralyzed, too. If that feller laying on the floor had only jest kicked oncet, or grunted, or done something, I could of loosened up and yelled, and I would of. I jest NEEDED to fetch a yell. But Henry ain't more'n dropped down there till I'm feeling jest like he'd ALWAYS been there, and I'd ALWAYS been staring into that room, and the last word any one spoke was said hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
"You're a murderer," says Jane in a whisper, looking at the perfessor in that stare-eyed way.
"You're a MURDERER," she says, saying it like she was trying to make herself feel sure he really was one.
"Murder!" says the perfessor. "Did you think I was going to run any chances for a pup like him?
He's scared, that's all. He's just fainted through fright. He's a coward. Those pills were both just bread and sugar. He'll be all right in a minute or two. I've just been showing you that the fellow hasn't got nerve enough nor brains enough for a fine woman like you, Jane," he says.
Then Jane begins to sob and laugh, both to oncet, kind o' wild like, her voice clucking like a hen does, and she says:
"It's worse then, it's worse! It's worse for me than if it were a murder! Some farces can be more tragic than any tragedy ever was," she says. Or they was words to that effect.
And if Henry had of been really dead she couldn't of took it no harder than she begun to take it now when she saw he was alive, but jest wasn't no good.
But I seen she was taking on fur herself now more'n fur Henry. Doctor Kirby always use to say women is made unlike most other animals in many ways.
When they is foolish about a man they can stand to have that man killed a good 'eal better than to have him showed up ridiculous right in front of them. They will still be crazy about the man that is dead, even if he was crooked. But they don't never forgive the fellow that lets himself be made a fool and lets them look foolish, too. And when the perfessor kicks Henry in the ribs, and Henry comes to and sneaks out, Jane, she never even turns her head and looks at him.
"Jane," says the perfessor, when she quiets down some, "you have a lot o' things to forgive me. But do you suppose I have learned enough so that we can make a go of it if we start all over again?"But Jane she never said nothing.
"Jane," he says, "Estelle is going back to New England, as soon as Margery gets well, and she will stay there for good."Jane, she begins to take a little intrust then.
"Did Estelle tell you so?" she asts.
"No," says the perfessor. "Estelle doesn't know it yet. I'm going to break the news to her in the morning."But Jane still hates him. She's making herself hate him hard. She wouldn't of been a human woman if she had let herself be coaxed up all to oncet. Purty soon she says: "I'm tired." And she went out looking like the perfessor was a perfect stranger. She was a peace, Jane was.
After she left, the perfessor set there quite a spell and smoked. And he was looking tired out, too.
They wasn't no mistake about me. I was jest dead all through my legs.
