Yes, you can look up, and jump, and turn white. You ain't worthy to drop a clod as big as the end of your finger on her coffin, Miss Sallie McCoy!"
"Oh, Uncle Boley, what do you mean?" she appealed.
"This has been a day of partin' and goin's away," said Uncle Boley heavily. "I'll set down, Sallie, and I'll tell you something you've got to know for the good of your soul."
She dropped to the grass beside him, afraid of his portentous manner, shocked by the seeming brutality of his words. Uncle Boley sat a little while looking in the direction that Hartwell had gone, and by and by he took off his hat and laid it on the grass at his side.
"Well, he's gone now; I'll not be breakin' my word to him if I tell you, Sallie. I guess it's only right for you to know, no matter if it does take the hide off somewhere."
So Uncle Boley told her the story of Fannie Goodnight, and how she came into Texas Hartwell's life, and what she had been to him. And when he came to that part of it Sallie covered her face with her hands and burst out crying, sobbing and moaning as if the grave had opened at her feet and swallowed the best that the world contained for her.
"I knew he didn't care for her—I knew he was
