Looks white, sick-lookin'. It acts different on 'em,
bein' sentenced. Most of 'em gets reckless, devilish-like. Some prays
awful, and sings them vile songs of the mills, all in a breath. That
woman, now, she's desper't'. Been beggin' to see Hugh, as she calls him,
for three days. I'm a-goin' to let her in. She don't go with him. Here
she is in this next cell. I'm a-goin' now to let her in."
He let her in. Wolfe did not see her. She crept into a corner of the
cell, and stood watching him. He was scratching the iron bars of the
window with a piece of tin which he had picked up, with an idle,
uncertain, vacant stare, just as a child or idiot would do.
"Tryin' to get out, old boy?" laughed Haley. "Them irons will need a
crowbar beside your tin, before you can open 'em."
Wolfe laughed, too, in a senseless way.
"I think I'll get out," he said.
"I believe his brain's touched," said Haley, when he came out.
The puddler scraped away with the tin for half an hour. Still Deborah
did not speak. At last she ventured nearer, and touched his arm.
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