"I do call it to you!" says he. "My girl couldn't of done that." "I wish I was a liar, Colonel," says I; "but I ain't. I'll give you one day to take that back, and you ain't going to study about no proofs neither. I've worked for you a long time. I've loved the girl like you did. It ain't no way for you to do to talk thataway to me. I'll say I've knew this some time and tried to stop it--it was my business to stop it. I tried a hundred times to tell you about it, but I couldn't without pretty near killing her and you too. She ast me not to tell you and--why, hell! I loved her, same as you did." "How far has it gone, Curly?" says he. He come over now and patted his hand up and down my shoulder, looking away, which was his way of saying he was sorry. "Don't mind me, Curly," says he. "I'm crazy! You mustn't mind me, but tell me all you know now. I know you couldn't lie to either of us if you tried." "Yes, I could too," says I; "but I haven't tried. But I just couldn't go to you and tell you all this thing, for I knew what it would mean to you. "It's been going on quietlike for quite a while and I've been doing all I could to stop it. It begun maybe when she hauled him out of the lake--I don't know. They didn't meet often. I heard 'em talking once on the dock, and I told him I'd run him off if he come across the fence or said another word to her. She begged for him then; but I never promised her nothing. I knew it was my job as your foreman to take care of that, so I didn't go to you." "Go on," says he. "Tell me!" "She didn't say nothing to him for a long time--she didn't meet him, not after she said she wouldn't. Then he sent letters over--tied to the collar of our little dog--two or three letters; maybe four or five, for all I know. He was crazy over her. All the time he owned up to her and me that he oughtn't to do what he done. He said in his letters he oughtn't to raise his eyes to her--he knowed he ought to of come around to the front door and not to the back door; and he said that very thing. But he said, like a man will, that he couldn't help it. "She didn't never answer his letters, so far as I know. I don't know as she ever got any word to him at all. So far as I know, they never did talk much, only that one time when I heard 'em. But, as to something going on--why, yes, it's been going on for quite a little while. And I've knew it; I've knew I ought to go and tell you. And all the time I couldn't, because I loved her and she ast me not to tell." "Did she ever tell you anything? Do you think she cared anyway for him? You see," he goes on, "I never seen him to know him. I don't know who he is. I didn't hardly know he was alive on earth. Gawd forgive me! I ought to of known. I told her once not to talk to that hired man; but if I'd thought anything of this I'd maybe of killed him then." "Yes; and I ought to of told you, Colonel," says I. "It was only the way things happened and because she ast me not to."