A neighbour woman, employed for
the purpose, had prepared the evening meal and now began complaining of
his lateness, saying that the food had got cold.
Sam ate in silence. While he ate the woman went out of the house and
presently returned, bringing a daughter.
There was in Caxton a code that would not allow a woman to be alone in a
house with a man. Sam wondered if the bringing of the daughter was an
attempt on the part of the woman to abide by the letter of the code, if
she thought of the sick woman in the house as one already gone. The
thought amused and saddened him.
"You would have thought her safe," he mused. She was fifty, small, nervous
and worn and wore a set of ill-fitting false teeth that rattled as she
talked. When she did not talk she rattled them with her tongue because of
nervousness.
In at the kitchen door came Windy, far gone in drink. He stood by the door
holding to the knob with his hand and trying to get control of himself.
"My wife--my wife is dying. She may die any day," he wailed, tears
standing in his eyes.
The woman with the daughter went into the little parlour where a bed had
been put for the sick woman. Sam sat at the kitchen table dumb with anger
and disgust as Windy, lurching forward, fell into a chair and began
sobbing loudly.
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