She looked startled and asked who I was going to marry. I told her the woman was a law student whom I had met in Waco. Carolyn seemed to freeze up and then she began crying. I thought I had done the best thing by telling her. She lay crying for a while and then seemed to recover. I planned to stay for just a little while. I had only come to simply see her and nothing else.

We stood up; she said it would be better if we did not talk about it. She seemed calmer.

Her mother, sitting on the other side of the room, looked almost exactly like Bonnie's mother, Vivienne. Her mother said when she had married, she had simply "proclaimed" the marriage. I thought perhaps she had had a common-law marriage; I talked with her a little about it. She said she had known another couple who had married that way. She had found out how it was done and had simply made a proclamation of marriage. It had startled her husband.

Carolyn walked up beside me; she wanted to go outside. She seemed to want to hold my hand; I debated about letting her slip her arm through mine so we could walk outside together. I thought, "Well there wouldn't be any harm in it, cause I don't have anything to do with her. I'm just going to leave here in a few minutes anyway."

We walked out on the porch together.