I set there I don't know how long--maybe I went to sleep once or twice--when I heard the front door close easylike and knew somebody had went out--I didn't know who it was. I waited for a long time after that, but no one come in and no one spoke.

By and by I heard her dress rustle, and she come into our room, where I was setting.

She was white as a ghost--I never seen anyone as white as she was. She didn't know I was there, and she threw her hands up to her face and almost screamed when I moved. Then she went over to our rawhide lounge and set down, and held her hands together so tight I could see her knuckles was white. She knew I was there, but she didn't seem to see me.

I didn't say a word. When a woman's fighting out things in that way it ain't no time to meddle. I wisht I was out of there, but I didn't dare go. She set and looked at the fire and wrung her hands. Whenever you see a horse wring his tail, he's done for. Whenever you see a woman wring her hands that way, she's all in; and she's sh.o.r.e suffering. But I had to stay there and see her suffer.

"Bonnie," says I, "what is it?"

She turns her eyes on me, and they was wide open and awful.

"Curly," says she, "I'm in trouble. It's awful! I don't know----"

"What's awful?" says I. "What's happened, Bonnie, girl? Tell old Curly, and he won't say a word to a living soul. I'm in with you, any sort of play--only don't look that way no more."

"Curly," says she, "it's come! I--I didn't know----"

"What's come?" says I. "Tell old Curly, can't you? I'll help all I can."

She set for a while, and when she spoke it was only in a whisper.

"I--I'm a woman!" says she. "I didn't know! I'm--I'm a woman. I'm not a girl any more. I'm a woman...."

She got up now and stood there as straight as though she was cut out of marble, and her silk dress hung round her legs, and she was still wringing her hands, and her eyes was wide open. But she wasn't crying.

"I didn't know," says she. "I never knew it would be this way. I didn't know."

"You didn't know what, Honey?" says I. "There's heaps of things we all don't know. But is there anything your old friend Curly can do for you now? Listen, sis, I've got you mighty much to heart," says I. "Tell old Curly, can't you, what's gone wrong? Your pa he's just gone to bed.

Shall I go and get him?"

"No, no, no! For Gawd's sake, no! I can't see him--I could never tell him."

"It's got to be told," says I.

Then she nodded up and down, fastlike, and didn't say anything.

"It ain't really any of my business," says I, "but have you and him---- Well now----"

"You men----" She broke down. "You men--what do you know about a girl?

What have you men done to me?"

"We done all in G.o.d Almighty's world we knew how to do for you," says I.

"We'd of done more for you if we'd knowed how."

"Ah, is it so! You've made me the most unhappy girl in all the world."

I couldn't say a word to that. It went through me like a knife-cut. I was glad that Old Man Wright wasn't there to hear it. I seen then that him and me had failed. We could never play no other game, for this was the only girl we had.

"You've brought me here," says she, "and I've been like a prisoner. But I've done all I could."

"Didn't you like it here?" says I. "We done considerable on your account. Don't you like us none?"

"Like you, Curly?" says she. "I love you! I love you!"

She come now and taken me by the shoulders and shook me. I didn't know she was so strong before.

"I love you--love both of you," says she. "I'd die for you any minute,"

says she. "I'd try to cut my heart out for either of you now--if it come to that. I tried it now, tonight. I tried it for an hour--two hours. I didn't know what it meant before."

"He ast you, Bonnie?" says I.

"Yes, yes," says she. "The poor boy! I like him so much--I pity him."

"My Gawd! Bonnie, you haven't refused him?" say I. "You haven't done that? You haven't broke the pore fellow's heart?" says I. "Why did you----"

"Why did you!" says she after me. "I told you he made it plain to me."

"What was it he made plain, Bonnie?" says I. "I suppose he, now, made some sort of love? It ain't for me to talk of that."

"Yes, yes!" She says it out sharp and high. "He did. I know now what it means to be a woman and in love. I never knew that before. But it wasn't--it wasn't for him! He held me--I was a woman--and it wasn't for him. How can I love---- What can I do? Why, I love you all, Curly--I love you all! I love Tom in one way; and I'm sorry, because he's good.

But that isn't being a woman. It wasn't for him--it wasn't for him!"

She was sort of whispering by now.

"So he went right away?" says I.

She nodded.

"Maybe I've broken his heart. I've broken yours and my father's and my own--all because I couldn't help being a woman. And I'm the unhappiest woman in all the world. I want to die! I don't know what to do. I want to be square and I don't know how."

"Bonnie," says I after a while, slow, "I know all about it now. You've been plumb crazy and you're crazy now. You've kept on remembering that low-down sneak next door. You've turned down a high-toned gentleman like Tom--and you done it for what? You ain't acted on the square, Bonnie Bell Wright," says I. "It ain't needful for me to tell all I know about him now. I could tell you plenty more."

"No," says she, and she was crying now; "it was an evil thing of me ever to listen to him. I've done wrong," says she. "But what must I do?" says she, "Must I lie all my life? I can't do that."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I know now what it means to be a woman and in love.'"]

"Well, some women are able to--just a little," says I. "Maybe you'd get over that business of that man next door if you was married and had a few kids of your own running around. You'd be happy with Tom. We'd all be happy. You'd forget--of course you'd forget. Women are built that way," says I. "I reckon I know!"

"Curly----" And, though she looked just like she always had, young and white and beautiful, and fit only to be loved by anybody, her face had something in it that made her look old, real old, like one of them statutes in our front yard.

She was twenty-three, and pretty as anything ever made in marble--and white as anything in marble; but she looked a thousand years old as she stood there then. There was something in her face that seemed to come down from 'way back in the past. She was--well, I reckon she was what she said--a woman!

"Curly," says she, "some women may be able to forget. It's the easiest way--maybe most of them do it. The average woman lives that way. But I can't, Curly; I can't--it isn't in my blood. Women like me have got to follow their own hearts, Curly--no matter what it means.

"I tried with all my heart to lie to Tom tonight. I even told him I wouldn't answer now--even told him to come back again after while; but I knew all the time I couldn't lie forever. I knew I could love some man--a man--but it wasn't for him. I'm like my father and like my mother, Curly. Do you want to crush the life out of me? Do you want to make me do something we'd all regret as long as ever we lived?"

She stopped talking then; but, sort of swinging around, she went on: