He nodded and stood. At the foot of the ladder he stopped and turned, one hand on the rung.
"Mrs. Hale."
"Yes."
"He didn't kill my brother. I asked him that first, before anything, and I watched his face when he answered, and I've done a good deal of horse trading, and I believe him. Lem was dying when he got there. Whatever else he did, he didn't do that." He paused. "I thought you'd want to know it before you read. In case you were afraid of it."
She had been afraid of it. She had not let herself know she was afraid of it until he said it, and then the fear went out of her all at once, like water out of a split bucket, and left her emptier than before.
"Thank you," she said.
He went up. She heard him moving above her, the creak of the boards, the heavy soft fall of the robes as he spread them, and then nothing. Nimrod went to the foot of the ladder and lay there, looking up.
Sabra turned the lamp up a quarter turn, and unfolded the letter, and read.
Sabra, it began. No dear. He had never been a man for dear.