"You could be worse off than you are, Ollie; as it is you've got a _name_!" "What's a name when you despise it?" said she bitterly. "Have you thought what people would say about you if you went away with Morgan, Ollie?" inquired Joe gently. "I don't care. We intend to go to some place where we're not known, and----" "Hide," said Joe. "Hide like thieves. And that's what you'd be, both of you, don't you see? You'd never be comfortable and happy, Ollie, skulking around that way." "Yes, I would be happy," she maintained sharply. "Mr. Morgan is a gentleman, and he's good. He'd be proud of me, he'd take care of me like a lady." "For a little while maybe, till he found somebody else that he thought more of," said Joe. "When it comes so easy to take one man's wife, he wouldn't stop at going off with another." "It's a lie--you know it's a lie! Curtis Morgan's a gentleman, I tell you, and I'll not hear you run him down!" "Gentlemen and ladies don't have to hide," said Joe. "You're lying to me!" she charged him suddenly, her face coloring angrily. "He wouldn't go away from here on the say-so of a kid like you. He's down there waiting for me, and I'm going to him." "I wouldn't deceive you, Ollie," said he, leaving his post near the door, opening a way for her to pass. "If you think he's there, go and see. But I tell you he's gone. He asked me to shut my eyes to this thing and let you and him carry it out; but I couldn't do that, so he went away." She knew he was not deceiving her, and she turned on him with reproaches. "You want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that old miserly Isom!" she stormed. "You're just as bad as he is; you ain't got a soft spot in your heart." "Yes, I'd rather see you stay here with Isom and do a nigger woman's work, like you have been doing ever since you married him, than let you go away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you'd have to face with him would kill you quicker than work, and you'd suffer a thousand times more sorrow." "What do you know about it?" she sneered. "You never loved anybody. That's the way with you religious fools--you don't get any fun out of life yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else's. Well, you'll not spoil mine, I tell you. I'll go to Morgan this very night, and you can't stop me!" "Well, we'll see about that, Ollie," he told her, showing a little temper. "I told him that I'd keep you here if I had to tie you, and I'll do that, too, if I have to. Isom----" "Isom, Isom!" she mocked. "Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell the old fool what you saw--tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, and tell him more! Tell the old devil I hate him, and always did hate him; tell him I've got out of bed in the middle of the night more than once to get the ax and kill him in his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead and in hell, where he belongs, and I'm sorry I didn't send him there! What do I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneaking spy!"