He went to the cabin and tapped at the door; there was no answer,
so he opened it and set the lunch basket inside. Then he hurried
home, built a fire, bathed, and put on dry clothing. He wondered
where Mary was. He was ravenously hungry now. He did all the
evening work, and as she still did not come, he concluded that she
had gone to town, and that Jimmy knew she was there. Of course,
that was it! Jimmy could get dry clothing of his brother-in-law.
To be sure, Mary had gone to town. That was why Jimmy went.
And he was right. Mary had gone to town. When sense slowly returned
to her she sat up in the bushes and stared about her. Then she
arose and looked toward the river. The men were gone. Mary guessed
the situation rightly. They were too much of river men to drown in
a few feet of water; they scarcely would kill each other. They had
fought, and Dannie had gone home, and Jimmy to the consolation of
Casey's. ~Where should she go? Mary Malone's lips set in a firm line.
"It's the truth! It's the truth!" she panted over and over, and now
that there was no one to hear, she found that she could say it
quite plainly. As the sense of her outraged womanhood swept over her
she grew almost delirious. "I hope you killed him, Dannie Micnoun,"
she raved. "I hope you killed him, for if you didn't, I will. Oh! Oh!"
She was almost suffocating with rage. The only thing clear to her
was that she never again would live an hour with Jimmy Malone. He
might have gone home.
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