Front matter (continued 4)

"You mean Driggs did. Well, what then? Driggs is getting old. He sometimes muddles. He's probably got this young sprig here confused with the great one."

"No, grandmother. Dr. Webster said it. Dr. Driggs only repeated what Dr. Webster said."

During the pause following Katherine's statement, Madam Crewe sat quite still, apparently absorbed in contemplation of her two, tiny hands, lying folded and motionless in her lap. When, at length, she looked up, a curious ghost of a smile curled the corners of her mouth.

"Really I am uncommonly gratified. You see, I can't help thinking, how barely I missed the honor of being this young man's grandmother. I'd have liked to have a grandchild of whom I could be proud."

Katherine winced. "I'm sorry I've disappointed you," she said bitterly.

"Don't mention it. It's not the first disappointment I've had in my life. It probably won't be the last. Moreover, now that you know, undoubtedly you'll think better of your decision to give him up. You'll marry him, after all, in spite of the loss of me and my money. So I'll have my eminent grandson, whether I want him or not."

"Grandmother!"

"Well, won't I? It seems to me, you have quite a keen eye for the main chance. At least, that's how I've made it out, judging from your behavior. At first, you were all for marrying him, when you thought you could do it on the sly, without sacrificing your interests with me. Then, on the impulse of the moment, for Norris's benefit, maybe, you played tragedy-queen and forswore your fortune for the sake of the man you love. All of which would have been very pretty and romantic—if you had stuck to it. But, when you had had time to calculate—presto! it's your lover you repudiate, to hang on to the money. Now you're fairly certain he's got all you'll need—doctors fleece one abominably, nowadays! Come and feel your pulse, and give you a soothing-syrup, and send in a bill for ten dollars, and that's no placebo, I tell you! Oh, there's no doubt you'll be rich, if you marry a doctor—— Where was I?"

"You were running down doctors, grandmother, and I don't see how you can, when you know what those you've had have done for you. I——"

"There, there! I don't need you to inform me, young miss. What I was saying is, nobody would doubt, for a minute, you'll take him now. I don't."

"Grandmother," the girl began, with the same kind of exaggerated punctilio Martha had observed in Mr. Ronald. "Grandmother, I want to be very respectful to you. I don't want to say one word that will excite you, or make you ill. But I think you take unfair advantage of me. You taunt me, and jeer at me because you know I can't hit back, without being an unutterable coward."

Madam Crewe made a clicking sound with her tongue.

"On the whole, I think I'd like it better if you did hit back, providing you hit back in the right way. No temper, you understand. No rage, no rumpus and that sort of vulgarity. But real dexterous thrusting and parrying. Now, for example, you missed an opportunity a few moments ago. When I said I'd have liked to have a grandchild I could be proud of, you might have retorted, 'I'm sorry I disappoint you, grandmother, but, perhaps, if you had been Dr. Ballard's grandmother, his distinction might not have been so great.' That would have been a silencer, because,—it would have been true. I'm afraid you're not very clever, my dear."

"If that sort of thing—slashing people with one's tongue, is clever, I'm glad I'm stupid."

"There! That's not so bad! Try again!" applauded the old woman.

Katherine turned away, with a gesture of discouragement.

"It never occurred to me before," Madam Crewe meditated, "but what you really need is a sense of humor. You're quite without humor. You've brains enough, but you have about as much dash and sparkle as one of your husband-that-is-to-be's mustard-plasters. Only the mustard-plaster has the advantage of you in sharpness."

The girl wheeled about abruptly. "He is not my husband that-is-to-be. I have told you that before."

"But the circumstances have changed. Now you know he is distinguished—probably well-to-do——"

"It only makes another barrier. Can't you see? Can't you understand?"

"Perhaps I might, if you'd have the goodness to explain. But you must remember, I'm an old woman. It's a great many years since I had heroics."

"Perhaps you never had them," Katherine retorted. "Perhaps you never were young—never cared for any one with all your heart. Perhaps you never had a heart."

"Perhaps," agreed Madam Crewe. "In which case, don't appeal to it. Appeal to my imagination. That, at least, I can vouch for."

"I took your word for it, that Dr. Ballard was a young struggling doctor, poor—with, at best, no more than a problematic future—that's what you said—a problematic future."

"Well?"

"When I began to suspect he cared for me, I was glad he hadn't a lot of advantages, to emphasize my want of them. It didn't seem to me, then, so impossible, that as poor as I should be, and as dull as you've always said I am, I might marry him some day, if he loved me. I never cared a rush about that nonsense connected with his grandfather. I wouldn't have cared, if it had been true. So when you threw mud at my grandfather and father, I didn't suppose he'd care—or believe it—either. And, he didn't and—doesn't. So far, we stood about equal. I could give him as true a love as he could give me. But——"

"Oho! So that's your idea. I see your point now. You've got the kind of love that weighs and balances, have you? You won't take more than you can give! Why, young miss, let me tell you, you may think that's high-flown and noble—it's no such thing! If you want to know what it is, it's your great-grandfather's arrogance turned inside out, that's all! If you refuse to marry the man you love, because you have nothing to offer him, you're as bad as I was when I refused because my lover had nothing to offer me. There's a pride of poverty that's as detestable as the pride of riches. You talk about love! You don't know what the word means. If you did, you'd see that the real thing is beyond such mean dickering. In love fair exchange is low snobbery."

The girl stared silently into her grandmother's face. Two bright spots were glowing in the withered cheeks, the old woman's eyes shot forth the fire of youth.

For the second time Katherine felt that the drawbridge was down. Impulsively, she took a step forward, grasping one of the little old hands, folding it tight in both her own.

"Grandmother, I want to tell you something—I see what you mean and—I know it's true. But—but—there's something else——"

Madam Crewe did not withdraw her hand. It almost seemed to Katherine as if its clasp tightened on hers.

"What else?"

"When he—when Dr. Ballard first spoke to me about his grandfather, he said, 'But after all, the only thing that really counts is character.' He said: 'One can afford to whistle at family-trees if one's own record is clean!' He said: 'After all, what's most important, is to be straight goods one's self. If I'd lied, or was a coward or had taken what belonged to some one else, or had any other dirty rag of memory trailing after me, I'd hesitate to ask any one to share my life with me, but——'"

"Well?"

"Grandmother—I've the kind of dirty rag of memory, he spoke about. I'm a coward—I've lied—I've taken what belonged to some one else."

CHAPTER XIII

Madam Crewe said nothing.

She gazed into Katherine's face blankly for a moment, then gradually withdrew her eyes to fix them on a bit of sky visible through the bowed shutters of the open window.

When the silence became unendurable, "Won't you speak to me, grandmother?" the girl pleaded. "Won't you let me feel you understand?"

There was a long pause before any answer came.

"Understand? No, I don't understand. How could one understand one's own flesh and blood being, doing—what you describe? That story would be perpetually new—perpetually incomprehensible. But perhaps you're vaporing. Using big words for insignificant things. A child's trick. Tell me the truth, and be quick about it."

There was something so formidable in the tiny old woman sitting there, coldly withdrawn into herself again, controlling any show of natural emotion with a fairly uncanny skill, that Katherine quailed before her.

In as few words as possible, she sketched the story of the recovered pocket.

Madam Crewe heard her through, in silence. In silence, received the object that had, at one time, been such a determining factor in her life. Katherine could not see that she betrayed, by so much as the quiver of an eyelash, the natural interest one might be conceived as feeling in so significant a link with the past.

"Be good enough to leave me," the old woman said at last. "And don't open this subject again, unless I bid you. If I need any one I'll ring for Eunice. Don't you come—for the present. Oh, before you go, see that you keep a close mouth about this thing, not alone to me, but to every one. Understand?"

Katherine nodded dumbly. She felt like a child dismissed in disgrace, or a prisoner returned to his cell. She did not know how long she remained in her room, but when Eunice came to announce luncheon, she sent her away, merely explaining that she was not hungry. And would Eunice kindly answer if Madam Crewe should ring?

Within her, a hundred impulses of revolt urged to some act of self-deliverance. She fought them down with appeals to her own better nature, her grandmother's need of her. It was to escape from herself, as much as from her environment, that, at last, in desperation, she caught up her hat and left the house.

She had been gone several hours, and it was twilight, when a low tap sounded on Madam Crewe's door.

Without waiting for permission to come in, Dr. Ballard did so. The old woman started up, as if his presence roused her from sleep, but he could see she had been fully awake.

"You look as if you had been through the wars," she observed dryly, examining his face with her searching eyes.

He dropped heavily into the chair she indicated.

"I have," he answered.

"You've saved two souls alive? Mother and child?"

He nodded. "But the war's not over. The fight's still on. I've done all I can. The rest lies with——"

The old woman took him up sharply. "Don't try to talk. Touch that bell."

Then, when Eunice, responding, stood on the threshold: "Bring me the leathern case you'll find standing beside the clothes-press in my dressing-room. Yes ... that's the one. Bring it here to me! Now, go downstairs and fetch a plateful of hard biscuits. Hurry! ... Stop! ... Before you go, hand me that glass from my table."

When the girl was gone, Madam Crewe unlocked the case before her, took from it a flask, and with surprisingly steady hands, poured a share of its contents into the glass Eunice had placed on the wide arm of her chair.

"Wine?" asked Dr. Ballard doubtfully, hesitating to drink.

"No, not wine. Drink it down. Now, the biscuits. Don't talk."

She pretended to busy herself with the leathern case upon her knees—replacing the flask, turning the key in the lock, rather elaborately fingering the smooth surface, as if all her attention was concentrated on some imaginary fleck or flaw she had just discovered.

When, watching covertly, she saw the haggard lines slowly fade from her companion's face, the blood gradually mount to his cheeks, she drew an audible breath.

"That's great stuff!" Daniel Ballard observed appreciatively. "What do you call it?"

Madam Crewe raised her eyebrows. "I don't call it. It has no name, so far as I know. It's an old stimulant my father picked up somewhere in the far East. He treasured it like gold."

"It's certainly done the trick. I was all in, and now I feel quite fit. Mrs. Slawson and I have been on the job since morning. She's a wonder, that woman! No end of nerve and pluck. I could make a corking good nurse of her! She's back there now, watching. Firm as Gibraltar. I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to get away for a moment, to catch a breath of fresh air, and a glimpse of——"

"Me?" Madam Crewe caught him up.

He corrected her gravely. "No, the evening star."

"Katherine came home from the Ronalds' this morning much disturbed."

"Over the case?"

"Yes—that, and—the fact of your being what she hadn't supposed."

Dr. Ballard looked his question.

"She feels overawed, now she's aware what a great man are you. A bit sheepish, too, I fancy, because, if I remember right, she has twitted you, more than once, on being worn out waiting for patients."

"Well, what of it? Suppose she has? I can stand chaffing, I hope. And besides, she was right. I am worn out waiting for patients—waiting for patients to 'do the rest' after I've, so to speak, 'pressed the button.'"

"It's hard to believe you're the Daniel Ballard of Boston there's so much fuss about. Are you sure you're the man Elihu Webster meant? The man he called a celebrated specialist—the best skill in New England—and so forth and so forth?"

"I'm the only M.D. of my name in Boston," the young man said simply. "But I don't call myself a specialist, much less and-so-forth and-so-forth!"

"What do you call yourself, then?"

"A physician."

"I wish I had married your grandfather," Madam Crewe announced.

Daniel Ballard bent his head, acknowledging what was more than mere compliment, by a silence sincerer than words.

"I must go. Where's Katherine?" he asked, after a moment.

"I don't know. Not at home, I fancy. Will you do me a favor?"

"If I can."

"Don't try to see her for a while. Leave her alone."

He had risen to go, but her words checked him.

"I can't give you any such promise," he said. "It seems a strange request for you to make."

"You don't trust me?"

"No. Not in this."

"You may."

He hesitated. "Perhaps. Still—I give no promise. I'll think it over. When I have more time, you'll explain?"

"Perhaps," she echoed.

The next minute she was alone.

However she accomplished it, Madam Crewe had her way. Katherine did not see Dr. Ballard again before he left for Boston. He left a brief note explaining that Mr. Ronald refused to release him, even after Dr. Webster arrived with his brace of nurses.

Katherine read the letter with a bitter smile. Technically, she had nothing to complain of. She had definitely said she would never marry him. He had taken her at her word—and yet, his easy acquiescence hurt her cruelly. It did not explain anything, that Mr. Ronald himself confessed his dependence on Dr. Ballard.

The saving of his wife and baby (a miracle, Dr. Webster called it) made Frank Ronald feel that, whoever came or went, "Ballard" and Martha Slawson could not be spared from Claire's bedside, until the danger was over, recovery absolutely certain.

It was all perfectly plausible, and yet—

Then came an urgent recall to Boston, which "the best skill in New England" felt obliged to respond to in person.

"If you didn't have a family, Mrs. Slawson," he said to Martha, the last evening, as they sat in Claire's sitting-room, gratifying Frank Ronald's whim that they remain within call,—"If you didn't have a family I'd urge you to take up nursing. You have an excellent knack for it. I could make a capital nurse of you."

Martha nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, sir. But there's so many things I'm, as you might say, billed to be made over into first, I guess I'll have to cut out the trained nurse. Besides, I might fall down on a case I was a stranger to. It's dead easy do for anybody you love, but to go an' pick'm up off'n the roadside——! Well, that's a differnt proposition. The dirt an' the smell o' some o' them! You wouldn't believe it!"

"Do you love that scamp Buller?"

"Not on your life! That is,—not so you'd notice it."

"Yet you stood by him like a soldier, when Driggs and I took his hand off, last night. How's that?"

Martha pondered a moment. "Well, you see, sir, to tell the truth, I feel kind o' responsible for Buller. 'Twas me made'm mad in the first place, an' then, when he wanted to get back at me, 'twas our trap give'm the nip. Poor fella! You couldn't help be sorry for'm, he'll miss that strong right hand o' his so, which it used to be a reg'lar pretidigiagitator with the licka—— 'Now you see it an' now you don't effec'.'"

Dr. Ballard laughed. "His left hand's in training already. Between the whiskey and the ether, last night, I was almost anesthetized myself. But joking aside, I'm going to leave Buller in your care. I'll show you about the bandaging, so when Driggs gets through with the patient, you can take him up. I wouldn't like to trust to Mrs. Buller. She's a slipshod creature, sure to neglect. Dr. Driggs tells me, Buller dreads him like the mischief, so he won't go there any longer than he has to. May I trust you to keep your eye on him, follow him up, and let me know if there's any hitch in the healing?"

"Certaintly you may," said Martha.

"Another thing," Dr. Ballard paused. "I'd be glad to feel you are keeping an eye on—a—Crewesmere."

Mrs. Slawson nodded. "Certaintly, again. But you don't think—that is, you ain't in doubt about the ol' lady, are you? I'd hate to think she might have somethin' I ain't used to. I kinda got accustomed to strokes now, so's if she'd have any more, I'd know just how to take a-holt, but if she set about gettin' up somethin' new, it'd sorta rattle me, maybe. You never can tell."

"No, that's it! You never can tell. I can't tell."

"It ain't as if she didn't have a sympton to show you," pleaded Martha, "so's you'd be workin' in the dark. When ladies is that way, the doctors says to'mselves: 'Her color's good, an' her pulse is strong, which proves she's far from a well woman. While I'm waitin' for somethin' to happen, I'll remove her appendicitis.' Folks has such funny furbelows inside'm nowadays, I don't wonder the doctors is puzzled. What's the use o' adenoids now, an' appendicitises, I should like to know, if it's only to go to the trouble an' expense of havin' 'm cut out?"

"Quite so," acquiesced Dr. Ballard gravely. "No, I'm not anxious about Madam Crewe's appendix. I'm anxious about her—granddaughter."

"Oh!" said Martha. "It's her you want to remove."

Dr. Ballard flushed. "Yes, Mrs. Slawson. That is—I wish to marry Miss Crewe. You already know of Madam's opposition. I don't mind that—any more. But something has happened—I don't know what—to change Miss Crewe, herself. I would never ask her to desert her grandmother. In fact, I would not respect her if she did desert her, leave her alone in her infirmity and old age. But I don't want her mind to be embittered. She is not happy. I wish you'd look after her—lend her a helping hand, once in a while. Lend her a helping heart."

"I'll do my best," promised Martha solemnly.

"I've grown attached to this place. I'd like to hear about—everybody, once in a while. I'd like, so to speak, to keep my finger on the pulse of the public."

Martha looked up perplexed. "The pulse o' the public? I don't know as I exackly get what you mean. But, if you want to feel the pulse o' the public, why—you're the doctor! Anyhow, I'll let you know how things is goin', if you'll excuse the liberty, and won't mind my spellin', which Sam says it's fierce."

"I'll deeply appreciate any line you may take the trouble to write me," Dr. Ballard assured her, with hearty sincerity.

It was September before Mrs. Slawson was actually settled at home again. The nurses, over at the big house, were altogether capable and trustworthy, but even after all need of her had passed, Mr. Ronald liked to feel Martha was within call. He fancied his wife felt more content when she was by, and, certainly, the baby slept better on her ample bosom than anywhere else.

It was a tiny creature, very delicate and fragile, a mere scrap of humanity that Martha could hold in the hollow of her hand.

In the privacy of their own sitting-room, the two trained nurses confided to Mrs. Slawson: "It's too bad the parents' hearts are so set on the child. They'll never raise it, never!"

"Now, what do you think o' that!" Martha said mournfully, and the two uniformed ones never knew that, in her heart, she despised them, "and their mizrable Bildadin' talk, which nobody could stand up against it, anyhow, much less a innocent little lamb that hasn't the stren'th to call'm liars to their faces."

"O' course we'll raise her," she assured Mr. Ronald confidently. "There's no doubt about it. Yes, I know she ain't very hefty, an' she ain't very robustic. But what do you expec'? You ain't give her a fair show yet. You can't take a baby, a few weeks old, 'specially if it had the tough time gettin' in on the game at all, that this one had, an' expec' her to be as big an' husky as my Sabina. It wouldn't be sensible. Besides, look at her mother! Miss Claire's no giantess, nor ever was, but she's as sound as a nut, an' so'll the baby be, when she gets her gait on, an' knows it's up to her to keep in step with the percession. Don't you let nobody discourage you. Believin's half the battle. You can take it from me, that baby's goin' to live, an' thrive, like the little thorabred she is. She wouldn't give us all this trouble for nothin'."

Her invincible confidence was like a tonic to Francis Ronald. It reinforced his own more flickering faith, so he could meet Claire's hungrily questioning eyes with reassurance.

And, as the weeks went by, Martha's prediction seemed less and less preposterous.

"Didn't I tell you?" she exulted. "That baby's a winner! She's goin' to be standard weight, all right, all right, an' measure up to requirements too, give her time. But between you an' me, all this new-fangled business with scales, an' tape-measures, an' suchlike, is enough to discourage the best-intentioned infant. There's more notions, nowadays, than you can shake a stick at—an' I'd like to shake a stick at most of'm, believe me!"

At the time, she was thinking rather more of Miss Crewe, than of the nurses, whose "queer fandangoes" she never could become reconciled to.

She was frankly anxious about Katherine.

"If I could do with her, like I do with Buller, I wouldn't say a word," she ruminated. "I just keep a kinda gener'l line on him, an' when the time comes, I get a-holt of his collar-band, an' march'm up to the captain's office, as brave as a lion. He's got so the minute I tip'm the wink, he comes for his washin' an' ironin'—I should say, bandidgin', as meek as a lamb to the slaughterhouse. But you can take it from me, there's no gettin' a line on Miss Katherine. She's devotin' all her time an' attention to puttin' off flesh an' color. The trouble is, she's got nothin' to do, an' she does it so thora, she ain't got time for anything else. Dear me! I wisht I could sort o' set her an' Buller at each other. It might help'm both to forget their losses. He certaintly is a queer dick, an' no mistake!"

"In spite o' his sportin' a G.A.R. one, you can take it from me, Buller ain't got all his buttons!" she told Miss Katherine. "Do you know what he says? He says everybody's gone back on'm because he's in trouble. He says, nobody'll look at'm now he's mangled. They was his friends before, when he had all the limbs was comin' to'm, but—now he's shy a hand—they're too proud to notice'm. He says the world's a hard place for cripples."

A faint smile flitted across Katherine's face

"What a perverted point of view," she said, for the sake of saying something.

"Do you know what I think?" Mrs. Slawson continued. "I think now is the zoological moment to catch Buller, an' see what kind o' animal he is—if he's got the makin' of a man in'm. If he could be got to give up the drink, I do believe he might amount to somethin' yet. You can't know what a fella reely is, when he's always steepin' in licka. It's like pickles. You wouldn't know if they're dill, or sweet or what they are, till you take'm out o' soak an' test'm."

"I should think you might influence him," suggested Miss Crewe impersonally. "You're so strong and wholesome and steady."

"Land, no! Buller wouldn't listen to me," said Martha. "How would I be reformin' anybody, when so many is reformin' me?"

"Mrs. Peckett, then?"

"Mrs. Peckett's way o' doin' things makes some folks nervous. It's like as if she said: 'I'm goin' to raise the tone o' this town, if I have to raise it by the scruff of its neck!' She's a good woman, Mrs. Peckett is, more power to her! Yes, she's as good as old gold, and—just as dull."

Katherine was amused. "Does Mr. Buller require people to be so very brilliant, then?"

"Land, no! He don't. But his case does. There's a differnce. The fella that gets the whip-hand of'm is the fella he's goin' to respec'. No others need apply. If there was anybody in this town could kinda give'm the fright of his life on the licka question, it'd be dead easy tame him to'm afterwords."

Miss Crewe's face lost its apathetic expression. A light of interest shone in her eyes.

"I wonder if an idea that has just occurred to me would be of any use? Last winter I attended a course of lectures at Columbia College, and one of the lectures was illustrated by lantern-slides, showing the effect of alcohol on the body and mind of habitual drunkards. They were enough to give one the horrors! If Buller could see those pictures——!"

Mrs. Slawson brought her hands down upon her knees with a sounding slap. "There, didn't I know you'd strike on just the right idea, quicker'n, sure'n anybody else? An' you've done it!"

"But it would cost a lot of money to get that lecturer here. We might not be able to get him at all, even if we could raise the money to pay——"

"Raise nothin'—beggin' your pardon!" Martha exclaimed. "Mr. Frank Ronald is always doin' things for everybody. Why couldn't you go to him, an' tell'm what you've just told me—that you're interested in savin' Buller's soul from destruction, not to speak o' the rest of'm, an' that you know a gen'lman down to Columbia with slidin' pictures, can do it, if he got the price of his ticket, an' somethin' to boot? I betcher Mr. Frank'd have'm up in no time, an' thank you for givin'm the chance."

Katherine shrank back. "Oh, no! I'd never dare," she said. "Mr. Ronald is dreadfully unapproachable, I think. His eyes are so stern, and he is so silent. He doesn't help you out at all—just seems always to be looking you through and through, and finding you very inferior."

"Have you see'm smile?"

"No."

"Well, you go down there, an' get'm to smile for you oncet. An' if you don't swear by'm ever after, my name ain't Martha Slawson. You can take it from me, Mr. Frank is true blue, like his eyes are. D'you think, if he wasn't, Miss Claire'd ever have married'm? Not on your life! She took'm for first choice, when she'd the refusal o' the pick o' the land, an' I know what I'm talkin' about."

By the time Martha was ready to go, Miss Crewe had decided that she really must see Mr. Ronald, and find if it were possible to interest him in her village-improvement plan.

If Mrs. Slawson would take her down to the big house, she could easily walk back before dinner-time, she said.

"Say, you make a chance, an' ask about Mrs. Ronald an' the baby. You'll get'm quickest, that way. An' even if you ain't used to infants, it won't be no lie to show you're dead stuck on this one, for she's a beauty on a small scale, an' no mistake," Martha dropped as they drove along.

Before Katherine was really aware, she found herself being escorted upstairs to his wife's sitting-room by Francis Ronald himself.

Burning logs were glowing on the open hearth, the place was warm and bright, and fragrant with hothouse blooms. Claire Ronald, looking like a delicate flower, of a very human variety, rose from her low chair before the fire, to greet her guest, and from that moment Katherine's constraint was gone.

She told of her plan, and the Ronalds were interested from the first.

"I think it's a capital idea, don't you, Frank?" Claire cried, in her quick, impulsive way.

"There is something in it, no doubt," he admitted cautiously, smiling down at her with very different eyes from those Katherine had dreaded. "But I don't think much could be accomplished by one lecture. If these people are to get anything, they've got to get it in good doses, 'repeat when necessary.' You can't be sure you've made your point, until you've hammered it in, given it what the journalists call 'a punch.' This can only be done by repetition, emphasis. But a course of lectures—with lantern-slides—a course extending through the winter—that would be a great scheme, I think."

Katherine's face fell. "We could never hope to have a course," she mourned.

"Why not?"

"The expense. Think what the cost would be!"

"It would be cheaper, in proportion, than one."

"In proportion, yes. But I doubt if we could raise the money for one, much less the course."

Mr. Ronald's eyes scanned her quizzically. "You should drill under Martha Slawson," he said with a touch of seriousness in his lighter manner. "She would never recognize the obstacle. She leaps it, or she mounts it, or she kicks it out of her way—but she never admits it,—and the consequence is,—it isn't there. Now, suppose you were not required to raise the price of the course. Suppose the price were guaranteed? Would you guarantee to raise the audience? Get enough people to pledge themselves to attend, so the lecturer would come up with the fair assurance that he'd face something beside empty benches?"

"I could try."

"How would you go about it?"

"There's a man named Buller——"

"Yes, I know him. A bad lot! Got his hand chewed up in a fox-trap, while he was on his way to my Lodge, to fire it, for the purpose of revenging himself on my superintendent's wife, Martha Slawson. Dr. Driggs told me about it. Gangrene set in, and the fellow'd have lost his arm, if not his life, if Dr. Ballard hadn't operated as promptly and skilfully as he did. Yes, I know Buller."

Katherine, considerably dashed, took up her theme again, notwithstanding.

"He's very ignorant, very debased, of course. Yet, I think, as Mrs. Slawson does, that he could be helped. He's very low in his mind just now, because he thinks his neighbors shun him on account of his accident."

For the first time she heard the hearty ring of Frank Ronald's laugh.

"Well, and this poor, abused soul is to aid you?—How?"

"He owns a horse and buckboard. It occurred to me he might be willing to help us, to the extent of taking me about from house to house, when I go to canvass. Incidentally, if the people see he's engaged in work we are interested in, it may re-establish him with them—with himself. He's lost all self-respect, all self-reliance. Mightn't it help him to get them back, if he felt he were concerned in some worthy enterprise, connected with reputable people?"

"It might."

The early autumn twilight had fallen before what Martha Slawson would have called their conflab ended.

While Mr. Ronald was giving orders for the motor to be brought around, his little wife displayed the wonderful baby, and Katherine, holding the tiny soft creature to her cheek, suddenly felt her heart melt toward that other tiny creature, not so soft, but almost as helpless, who was sitting solitary and alone in the chill and dreariness of what she called, by courtesy, home.

CHAPTER XIV

Martha found an almost disorganized household when she got home.

"Say, this is never goin' to do in the world!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "I got to pull you all up with a round turn. The whole raft of you, from Ma down, needs a good whackin' into shape. Say, Ma, what you sittin' there whimperin' for? You look as if you'd lost your last enemy, an' had nobody left to take any comfort out of. I wouldn't put it before you to be yearnin' for the gayety o' little old New York again. That so?"

Ma drew in her lips plaintively. "No, it ain't so. I'm contented here, enough, only—— 'Tis not the same place at all when you're not in it. Never a one o' them to think o' drawin' me a cuppertee, nor set a match to the fire, when the wind is blowin' that chill, it's enough to rattle the teeth in your jaws. When I feel cold, I feel—poor!"

She began to cry.

"Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you may take it from me, I'll give you something to cry for. I'm as cross as your grandmother's worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o' my way, everybody, till I get my house lookin' like a house again, an' my fam'ly in order, so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human bein's, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on, while Sammy an' me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the furnace, to take the chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma. Francie, while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me a pound o' tea—I see there ain't a leaf left in the caddy. You can take Sabina along for comp'ny, only don't forget to bring her back. We might need her for somethin' sometime. You never can tell. For goodness' sake! Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o' that! I bet there ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix either, a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin' dog an' cat, I never see. I'm ashamed to look'm in the face."

As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up, straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing.

Ma, drinking her cuppertee from the saucer, reveled in the genial warmth her daughter-in-law had caused to come up out of the cold, dark, nether regions into which she, herself, never descended, and felt a sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own personal benevolence, as she rehearsed all the gossip she had been able to cull from without or within, since her son Sammy's wife had been gone. Ma did not call it gossip, she called it news.

"'Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an' out, as usual, an' told me what was goin' on, or I'd never have known no more than if we'd been livin' in the Sarah desert, itself. 'Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is Buller that he'd be after comin' here, in the dead o' night wit' his fagots, to burn us alive in our beds, to say nothin' o' the gun he was for shootin' us wit', into the bargain. An' you to be standin' by, an' holdin' his hand, when 'twas cut off on account of the gangerine! Mrs. Peckett says every one in the place is callin' you a good Sam Maritan."

"'In me eye,' says Biddy Martin," Martha sang out sceptically.

"Mrs. Peckett was sayin' 'twas the wife's dooty stand by her own man, an' not another woman's at all. Mrs. Peckett was after sayin' God knows she's as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the evil tongues some folks do be havin' nowadays, would make you look out for your repu*ta*tion."

"Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice how some people'll try to keep their own place clean by shakin' their dirty rags on other people's heads? They don't care where the smut lands, so long's they've shook it off'n their own skirts. The trouble is, they sometimes get come up with. They don't watch which way the wind's blowin', so they get all their own dirt, an' then some, blown back on'm, which they'd better never have stirred it up, in the first place."

Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law's drift, Ma felt it desirable to change the subject. Did Martha know that the Fred Trenholms had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air children they had had with them all this summer and last?

"An' they do be as proud, as proud! The way you'd think they'd a fortune left them, instead of a ready-made fam'ly to eat'm out o' house an' home, itself."

"The Trenholms are bricks!"

Ma coughed nervously, then tried again.

"That old bachelor brother o' Mrs. Coleses, the one's been so long sick-a-bed wit' the doctor, he's been took down wit' the meazles."

Martha proceeded with her work.

"Well, that's the way it goes! When a fella's been cryin' wolf for years an' years, the chances are he'll attrac' some kinda thing his way, if it's only a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin' than dangerous. Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a party Hiram Parkinson's age an' ambitions. He's been walkin' around with, as you might say, one foot in the gravey,—poor soul! I bet it makes'm sore to feel he's with both feet in the soup. Meazles! I guess I'll send'm a glass or two o' my slip-go-down jelly to cool his throat."

"I guess he didn't be expectin' that, whatever it was he did be expectin'," Ma dropped complacently.

"Well, you gener'ly get sump'n, if you expect it long enough. That's why it's up to us to be sure we like our order before it goes in, for in the end we'll have to chew it, anyhow."

Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated herself, and taking paper, pen and a bottle of ink from the drawer, prepared to write.

"Goin' to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering over at her curiously.

"Looks like it, don't it?"

"A letter?"

"Maybe, or else my last will an' prayer-book, as they say."

"I wonder——"

"I guess if you're goin' to wonder out loud, Ma, you'll have to do it later. I got to get this job off'n my hands right now, an' between you an' me an' the lamp-post, I ain't so flip with my pen an' ink, I can do much of anythin' fancy, while you wait. I got to take my time at it. It's the hardest stunt I know of. Firstoff, you got to have somethin' to write about, an' then, before you're fairly ready to put it down—what with delays, owin' to spellin', blots an' so forth—it's got away from you, an' you have to think up somethin' else in its place. While you're doin' that the next idea gets away, so you're left, whatever way you look at it. Now, 'silence in the court-house,' as Sammy says."

Ma would have given all she was worth to discover what it was that, for the next couple of hours or so, Martha was so painfully employed upon. She did her best to find out, but though she craned her neck, ducked her head, peeked and peered, it was no use. A substantial elbow curved around the paper, effectually shielding it from inquisitive eyes.

Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am home again but that is wear I am for Miss Clare is well enough now to spair me and the baby is doing fine in spite of the nurses witch says she will live now witch I thank them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses and round besides so a blind man could see it and never a cry out of her the hole day long the lamb or night either except wen neccery. Mr. F. Ronald would not call the quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is bizzy getting a party from the city to come and give a corse of leckchers to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them on a sheet verry much unlarged. miss katrine hopes seeing what the licker does to his jerms will scair Buller off the drink annyhow he ain't drunk much as ushal becaus he has bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is verry proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it. Wile i bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this dont intrust you madam Crew is verry well but her and Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i do not no Miss Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better do not think that is becaus ennything accepting the corse of leckchers. MEN is necherly jellys pardon the libberty but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like if she got found of any party once would not change to get found of any other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i once lived out with his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to a judg told me witch I just looked it up in the dickshunnery for the speling and it ain't what he told me it was a tall but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you feel for your relations. Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is clean I told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up on the drink i will let you no if he lets up I will let you no if Madam crew and Miss Kathreen lets up all so enny more i think will intrust you I know what was in your hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will knew you can count on me. Love to all Yours

trewly Martha Slawson.

The writing of the letter in itself might not have excited any undue suspicion in Ma. Once in a long time Martha did actually "sit down to take her pen in hand" to write to one of the relations, though usually it was Cora who was offered up on the altar of family concord. But to-day "me son Sammy's wife's" conduct was exceptional. She wrote and rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated, "It's fairly a caution, an' out of all sensibleness, the way she does be destroyin' perfectly good paper."

Also,

"It'd surely be a stranger she'd be after wastin' all that time an' ink on, for not one of her own at all would ever be for gettin' the like of it." The next logical step in the shrewd deduction was—"Who is the stranger?"

Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha's elbow grow, until finally it coasted, like a tiny avalanche to the floor. She watched her daughter-in-law stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and stuff them into her apron pocket.

When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious letter, artfully resisting, obliged at last to yield to main force, and go into its envelope whether it would or no. Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw it directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha's own hand, to the R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma insisted "one of the childern could go just as good, an' save you the steps, itself."

When Martha returned from her errand she found Mrs. Peckett in possession of Sam's chair by the table.

"And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It's good to see you home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the doorsill.

"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any troubles."

"That's what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly, "Martha always says she wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit' trouble. She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass you by the quicker, but if you clap a name to it, 'twill come in an' live wit' chu, till you'd never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."

For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin' at the stummick" that followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked confidentially over Ma's head to their neighbor, and said calmly:

"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age, Ma, an' be the mother o' married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs. Peckett?"

Mrs. Peckett nodded.

"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that's going the rounds about mother-in-laws' suffering at the hands of the parties their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I'd do too much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she couldn't say much of anything, for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse, 'Don't let Beulah in!' When the nurse told me about it, after Mother Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most cried. I said to the nurse, 'Did you ever!' and the nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!' Just like that—'We reap what we sow!' I wager she's told the story to many a family she's been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case don't prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being."

"Oh, I ain't complainin'," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly well, an' I'll say this much for her, she's turned out better than I expected."

Martha bowed profoundly. "'Thank you, thank you, sir,' she sayed. 'Your kindness I never shall forget!'"

"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard on me, part wit' him, to be married. All the time he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd turn'm down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the way they'd never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be takin' another fella was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't. She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me heart."

"Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson. Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or——"

"Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy's as chipper as a squirrel, an' don't you forget it!"

Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know that, as good as me. An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself. There's many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the riches he has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."

Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober, steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seems you've had your romance, too! It's a surprise, but—live and learn! Live and learn!"

"That's just it!" Martha returned. "We don't. We live, but we don't learn, more's the pity. Have a cup o' tea. Ma relishes it, along about this time in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble. An' you must sample some cookies I made this mornin'. I'm quite stuck on my own cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn't."

After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with more than usual gravity,

"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to Mrs. Peckett you wouldn't just as lief was posted on a board-fence."

"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know, Martha Carrol?"

"Nothin' much, only—I kind, o' wish she hadn't got wind o' Gilroy."

"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much as open me lips, I'm rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the fam'ly. Better for me, if I kep' to me own room entirely, an' never set foot here at all, to be accused o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when 'twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned Gilroy's name."

Martha shrugged. "Come on, now, Ma, cheer up! I didn't mean to hurt your feelin's. It's just I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett. I used to think she was good, firstoff. But she's as shifty as dust! I wouldn't put it before her to take anything she got a-holt of—the innocentest thing, an' twist it into what'd scandalize your name, so you'd never get rid of the smutch of it, however you'd try. The worst things ever I heard of the folks in this place, Mrs. Peckett told me. It's took me over a year to find out most of'm's just mischeevious tattle. You can lock up against a thief, but you can't pertec' yourself from a liar."

Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast for a second or so, but that was enough for Martha. Recognizing it as the sign of a coming deluge, she hastily changed the subject.

"What do you hear from the folks down home, these days?" she asked affably.

"No more than yourself. Sam got a letter from one o' them (Andy, I'm thinkin') this mornin'. Didn't he be after readin' it to youse before he went out?"

"No, he did not."

"I thought surely he would be tellin' you, that are his wife, even if he kep' his old mother in ignorance. That's the way it is wit' childern, these times."

"For the love o' Mike!" Martha murmured beneath her breath.

When Sam came in, shortly after, had silently eaten his supper, and was preparing to settle down for a bout with The New England Farmer, she proceeded to take him to task on his mother's behalf.

"Ma feels kind o' sore because you didn't show her the letter you got this mornin' from Andy."

Sam pulled off his shoes with a jerk. "How'd she know I got a letter from Andy?"

"I d'know. But you did, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, why didn't you read it to her? She's gettin' old, an' the older she gets, the crankier she gets. I guess it's up to us to humor her, for, one thing's certain, she won't humor us, an' there might as well be some fun in the house for some one."

Sam caught his lower lip between his teeth and held it there for a moment.

"There was nothing in Andy's letter would interest her. That is, there was no family news, or anything. 'Twas a business letter."

Martha proceeded with her work, dropping her questioning at once.

"Well, an' why wouldn't I be interested in me own son Andy's venturin', no matter if it is business, itself?" insisted the old woman querulously, when Martha repeated what Sam had said. "If that same Andy does be makin' a fortune, surely his own mother should be hearin' tell of it, first; leastwise, so she should in any God-fearin' fam'ly. But it's more like a heathen I'm treated now, than a Christian woman, that's raised a big crop o' childern till they'd be able fend for themselves. Andy is likeliest of the lot, an' now, when he's made his fortune, an' would be writin' his brother of his luck, his own mother would be told, 'It's only business!' the way she'll not take a natural joy in his triumphin', or, maybe, look to'm for a stray dollar, itself."

To all of which Martha made no reply.

But later, when Ma and the children were abed and asleep, she looked up from her mending to find Sam's eyes fixed on her in a stare of grim desperation.

"For a fella whose brother has just made his everlastin' fortune, you're the mournfullest party I ever struck," she quietly observed. "You're as glum-lookin' as one o' them ball-bearer undertakers at a funer'l. Cheer up! It ain't your funer'l! An' if you ain't made the fortune, your brother has, so it's all in the fam'ly, anyhow."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Why, Ma says Andy's letter was to tell you he's made a fortune."

Sam groaned.

"Well, hasn't he?"

"No."

"What was his letter about, then? He ain't after money, to borrow it off'n you, is he?"

Sam shook his head.

"Because, if Andy wants to try any of his get-rich-quick games on us, he better guess again. He's got to take his chances with all the other fancy dancers, that's all there is to it. It's a poor pie won't grease its own tin."

"He don't want to borrow, Martha. He——"

"Well——?"

Sam swallowed hard, laid The New England Farmer on the table, and drew himself in his chair a step nearer his wife.

"When I was down in New York, Andy was fairly beset with the idea of going into a scheme with a man he knew, who'd offered him a chance, if he could raise the cash, or as-good-as. Andy could talk of nothing else. The same with Nora-Andy. They told me all about it, and I'm bound to say it did sound good to me. But I'd no money to give or lend, and I told them so. Ma'd been blabbing about our having a bit saved, and Nora-Andy reproached me with withholding it from my own brother, when it was only a loan he needed, with good interest for the one loaned it, to take the chance of a lifetime. I told them the money wasn't mine, but yours and the children's. You'd saved it, not I. And then Andy said, he'd never lay hand on it, if it was the last penny he'd ever hope to see. 'Twas not money he wanted of me at all, and he brought out a paper, that, if I would set my name to it, would help him out, as fine as money, and nobody hurt by the transaction a hair."

Martha dropped her sewing to her lap.

"You never signed it, Sam?" she entreated. "Of course, you never signed it. You know better'n me that it's wrong to set your name to any tool—(ol' lady Crewe's l'yer's very words)—wrong to set your name to any tool——"

"Instrument," suggested Sam drearily.

"Well, instrument, then. It's wrong to set your name to any instrument unless you know what you're up against."

"I know it," confessed Sam humbly.

"Well?" Martha plied him.

"I did it, mother. And now, the note's come due, and Andy can't meet it, and——"

"Well, what do you think o' that!" sighed Martha.

Sam had been leaning forward on his elbows, his palms propping his chin. Now his face dropped into his hands, as he hid his haggard eyes from her clear, searching ones.

"How much, Sam?"

"All we got. The whole two-hundred-and-fifty."

For a moment Martha was dumb. Then, straightening back in her chair, taking up her sewing again, she said, "Well, at least we got it. There's that to be thankful for. An' doncher break your heart, Sam, worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign that tool—I should say instrument. I done the same thing myself, now I come to think of it. The pot can't call the kettle black. I set my name to a paper, ol' lady Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how much I'll be stung for it, for I don't.—But wouldn't it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a rainy day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to save, has to go for a umbrella to keep some other fella dry, which all you get, is the drippin's—right in the neck!"

CHAPTER XV

After many days of serious pondering Martha decided that the only way to relieve her mind was to "march straight up to the captain's office," and ask Madam Crewe point-blank, precisely what the liabilities would be, in the event of the paper she had signed, falling due, and failing to be met by the old lady herself.

"But if she said 'twas her will?" argued Sam. "You're all right if it was her will. You couldn't lose out on that, you know. Unless you were the kind that'd be looking for yourself. And, of course, if you sign one as witness, you're sure you can't be left anything in it."

"I don't want to be left anything in it. But, by the same token, I don't want to be left other ways, either. That's to say, I wouldn't want to have to cough up a couple o' hunderd now, just to oblige. Especially when I ain't got'm. Besides, it wasn't her told me 'twas a will. 'Twas the l'yer—which is quite another pair o' shoes. Anyhow, I'm goin' up there to find out what I'm libel for in case she can't pay, like Andy."

Sam saw there was nothing to do but stand aside and let her go.

The moment she entered the room, Martha realized that a change had taken place in "ol' lady Crewe." It was not anything she could "put her finger on," as she would have expressed it, but it was there unmistakably, to be felt, to be—feared.

At the sound of her step upon the floor, the little Madam looked up quickly. A faint smile curled the corners of her mouth for a second, then vanished.

"Well, and what's brought you here, after all these weeks? I thought you had fallen into the well."

"I been stayin' with Miss Claire, I should say, Mrs. Ronald. An' since a week or ten days, when I went home, I been so took up with my house an' the fam'ly in gener'l, I ain't had a chance," Martha explained eagerly.

"Never mind apologizing. What's been the trouble with 'the house and the family in general'?"

"They got kind o' loose-jointed while I was away, so's I had to lick'm into shape again,—bring'm up to time. An' it kep' me hoppin'."

"You have hopped to some purpose, I hear. You and Dr. Ballard have been making a record for yourselves."

"Me?" repeated Martha, amazed. "I ain't done nothin'. But pshaw! I forgot! You're just tryin' to take a rise out o' me, as ushal."

"A what?"

"A rise. You know what I mean, ma'am. Tryin' to take my measure. That's what you're mostly up to—only folks ain't on to you."

Madam Crewe regarded her fixedly for a moment.

"Do you know, Slawson," she pronounced thoughtfully at length, "I've an idea I'd quite enjoy some of the things you say—if you spoke English. The trouble is, I don't understand your patois."

Martha smiled blandly. "Askin' your pardon, for the liberty, I often thought the same thing o' you. I don't understand your what-you-may-call-it, either. Nor most of us don't understand each other's, an' that's what's the trouble with us, I guess. I sometimes wonder how we get along as good as we do, with the gibberish we talk, makin' hash o' what we mean, an' sometimes, not meanin' anythin'."

"Right."

"An' the funny part is, the parties we're most likely to slip up on is them we love the most."

"Go on."

"I was thinkin' how, when my girl Cora was a baby in my arms, I had the best holt o' her I'll ever have, prob'ly. Her an' me understood each other then. But now, every oncet in a while, I might as good be a Dutchman, an' her a Figi Injun for all we make o' each other. I try to hold in my horses, an' hang on to all the patience I got at them times, an' I guess she does the same, an' somehow, we manage to rub along, but you may take it from me it's some of a scratch! The same with the other childern, as they grow up. Even down to Sabina, who, young as she is, has a mind o' her own an' sever'l other parties to boot."

"And in the meantime, you and your husband are going without common comforts, necessities—for those very children, who would turn about and rend you at the first opportunity."

Martha laughed. "Not on your life they wouldn't rent us—or sell us either, when it come to the test. If we go without things, to give them a better start, we're not foolin' ourselves on it, believe me! We're makin' a A1 investment. We don't grumble at the taxes, or the 'sessments or all the rest o' the accidental expenses—so long as we know they're good. It's when you'd feel you got a bad bargain on your hands, like it'd be poor drainage, or hard as rocks, or leakin' and shifty—it'd be then you'd hold back, sendin' good money after bad. An' then you'd be wrong. For you can take it from me, there's no child so bad it ain't worth savin'. You read about'm in the papers, how they steal an' lie an' so forth, an' when all's said an' done, it's like pictures you'd get of yourself—they ain't as good as you are, bad as you are. No, you can't spoil a good child, an' you can help a bad one. So small credit to us, Sam an' I, if we do save. It's for the sake of our own, which, after all, we know the stuff they're made of. Same as you and Miss Katherine."

Madam Crewe was silent.

"No, it's not puttin' money in the childern, makes me sore," Martha continued, "it's when we scraped an' screwed a few dollars together for a nest-egg, an' then, in the turn o' a hand, it's gone—to pay for somethin' we never owed, nor no one got any good out of, but the wrong fella."

"You mean you've been doing something foolish? Speculating? Losing money?" demanded Madam Crewe abruptly.

"My husban' signed a paper for his brother, an' it let'm in for all we had put by. I was wonderin' if the paper I signed here early in the summer, I was wonderin' if that had a sting in it, too? An' if so, how much?"

"I don't understand."

"I mean, the paper I signed here the time Eunice Youngs an' me both set our names to it together."

"That paper was my will, woman. It had nothing to do with you."

"That's what Sam told me, but—I——"

"You could not be called upon to pay one copper because of what you did that day. On the contrary—— No! Never mind! What have you stood to lose through your husband's foo——"

"He wasn't any foolisher'n me," Martha anticipated her quickly.

"Your husband's misfortune," amended Madam Crewe.

"Two-hunderd-and-fifty dollars. All we had saved. But we'll set about right over again, an' if we have luck, we can put by some more. An' anyhow, I'm thankful there won't be another such call on us. That was what I kinda had on my mind when I come."

"Well, you can shift it off your mind. I give you my word. You believe me, don't you?"

"Yes'm."

"And I believe you. So far we understand each other. Now, Slawson, I am going to prove that I trust you. I am going to ask you an honest question. I want an honest answer."

"Yes'm."

"You are the mother of four children. You have had experience in bringing them up right. I have had one child—one grandchild. I have brought them both up—wrong. What's the trouble?"

Martha did not reply at once.

Madam Crewe waited patiently, making no attempt to hurry her, and the room was as still as if it had been empty. At last Martha spoke.

"O' course I d'know what the trouble was, if there was any, with your boy. But it seems to me, I see where you kind o' slipped up on it with Miss Katherine."

"Well?"

"Firstoff, the way I look at it, childern is all selfish, which is only to say they're human, like the rest of us. They're selfish an' they're mischeevious, an' they're contrairy, for, when all's said an' done, they're—childern. What we want to do is, learn'm not to be selfish an' mischeevious an' contrairy. An' how can we learn'm not to be it, if we're that way ourselves? There's a lady I usedta work out for—(you know her—Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald's sister). She give her boy every bloomin' thing money could buy——. But she never give'm a square deal. You can take it from me, what a young 'un respec's is a square deal. He mayn't like it, but he respec's it. An' you for givin' it to'm.

"Now, beggin' pardon for the liberty, I don't think Miss Katherine's had a square deal, or a fair show. She ain't had what's her rights, an' she knows it. You kep' her too close on—well, lots o' things. Love an' a free foot an', oh, lots o' things. She's lived so long, as you might say, from hand to mouth, that now she don't know which is her hand an' which is her mouth. An' that makes her look kinda awkward to you. What I'd rather my childern'd feel about me than anythin' else is, that I see their side an' try to treat'm white. All the cuddlin' an' the coddlin' in creation won't help you, if your child knows it ain't havin' justice. An' all the strictness an' the punishin' won't keep it straight, if it ain't sure there's love along with the lickin's.

"Miss Katherine's a good child. You couldn't go far wrong, if you took it for granted she was goin' to do the right thing, like you are yourself. If I was you, excuse me for sayin' it—if I was you, I'd kinda open up to Miss Katherine. She's young. With all she's so tall an' han'some-lookin', she ain't learned all the sense there is. She thinks, the same's the rest o' the kids, that the only reason she ain't got the world for the askin' is because her 'mean ol' fam'ly' don't want her to have no fun. Give her a chance. Show her you believe in her. You got to believe folks believe in you, to do your best. Now, take you, for instance. Your talkin' up so quick an' sharp as you do, makes most parties feel you're kinda hard to get along with. But my, I get along with you first-rate, because I ain't fooled by your outsides. I know your insides is all right, an' that's enough for me. But a young lady, like Miss Katherine, she wouldn't know. She's got to be showed, like Sam says they do in Missouri. But, you can take it from me, you wouldn't have to show her but once. There! I've talked a blue streak, an' prob'ly tired you all out. Only, you see, when you get me on childern, you got me on a subjec's my speciality, as you might say. That is, I try to make it my speciality, like Sam does cows an' pigs an' farm-produc's gener'ly, now he's got to deal with'm. Before I go, can't I get you somethin', or, maybe, see you safe in bed?"

"Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply. "Why do you suggest bed to me? Do I strike you as belonging there?"

"Oh, no'm!" lied Martha calmly. "I wasn't thinkin' o' your comfort, so much as mine. It kinda's got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the little ones up an' cover'm over, 'n' know they're fixed for a good, sound sleep, before I leave'm."

Madam Crewe set her lips.

"Well, Slawson, it won't be long before you can do that for me. But not to-night. Go your way now. It's growing late. But come again soon. Very soon, you understand?"

"Yes'm."

On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door.

"Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young woman whom she found cozily toasting her toes before the grateful warmth of the range, "where's Miss Katherine?"

"I d'know."

"Who's lookin' after the little Madam?"

"Nobody much, lately. Miss Katherine used to, and she does now, when she's home, but she's off, mostly, 'n' I have all I can do getting my work done up."

"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I'm comin' to-morra again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was plannin' to go home to-night, doncher. Just you stay right on deck here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because I tell you, that's why. You might be needed on short notice. Now, are you goin' to do as I say or ain't you?"

"Yes."

"That's a good girl. An'—an' if I should be needed for anythin', any time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night, an' I'll drop everythin' an' come."

Eunice followed her to the doorstep.

"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."

Martha laughed. "Well, I'm glad if I got some kinda move on you, young lady. You certaintly need it."

But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood.

"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam, the children, even Ma.

Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was there no longer.

"What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.

Nobody answered.

Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed, was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all the years of their life together.

"What's the matter?" she repeated.

Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband, with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door.

"Now, what is the matter? For the love o' Mike, one of you say!" she demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.

The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out of Ma.

"As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered peevishly.

"Well?" probed Martha.

"But to see me own son castin' black looks at me, as if he'd slay me——"

"Tell me what you've done, never mind about Sam!"

"The day I first see you writin' one o' them letters, Martha——"

"What letters?"

Sam's fist came down on the table-top with the force of a sledge-hammer.

"Hold your tongue, Ma! By God! I won't have my wife's ears soiled with your dirty gossip. I've listened to you myself long enough, too long. I'd not have done it, even so, except for the need there is to stop your scandal-mongering—yours and this woman's here."

Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

"Why, Sam! What ails you?" she asked in wonder. "I never seen you the like o' this before. Let Ma speak. She was sayin' about letters. What letters?"

The muscles in Sam's jaws twitched visibly beneath his tense skin. As Martha looked at him, she seemed scarcely to recognize him for the man who was her husband. Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses of her memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted in some far-off, vague time and association, when she had not consciously taken note of it. "Beware the fury of a patient man!" Now she understood what the words meant.

"If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it's I will tell her," he spoke so low, his words were barely audible, but Ma would have felt easier if he had thundered. "Now listen, you two, to what I say. Never for one second have I doubted my woman. Never would I. When I tell you, Martha, what these have been saying, I don't do so for you to deny it. You're my wife. I believe in you—and would, against heaven and—hell. It seems, you've been writing letters to some one, lately, which God knows you've the right to do it. But these two here must needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing the stray bits of scribbling you thought you'd destroyed and thrown away. They gathered them up, and, when your back was turned, pieced them together, to send to me with an anonymous letter—only I suspicioned something was afoot, and watched, and to-day I caught them at it. My God! There ought to be a separate fire in hell as punishment for such damned muck-raking!"

"Sam!" entreated Martha.

"Suppose you have written Gilroy, who, none knows better than I, how once he wanted to marry you, and how you turned him down for me. Suppose you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy has written to you——"

"I have, Sam, an'—he has," Martha confessed slowly.

"Surely you'd the right to do it, and I'd be the last to question you."

Martha gave him a long look.

"Did you say Ma an' Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o' my letters to Gilroy?"

Sam nodded.

"Did they give you the letters?"

Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.

With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud.

"'I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours—MARTHA."

She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.

"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.

Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its habitual level.

"You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I'm not the other things you have called me to your shame—not mine. But I bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a Christian woman, trying to do my duty."

"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.

"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband's unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm over, ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They're from letters I wrote to—another man."

Still Sam did not flinch.

Martha took a deep breath.

"Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett? An' I'll sit, too. An' so will you, Sam. So long's we got on this subjec', we better come to a clear understandin'. That's always the best way. As I said at the start, Sam, I have been writin' to Gilroy, an' he's been writin' to me."

She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine stood, pulled open the drawer of its table, and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes tied about with a strand of black darning-cotton.

"P'raps I'd ought to have told you firstoff, Sam, but I didn't, because I thought your feelin's might be hurt, an'—what you don't know won't worry you. The day after you had the news of Andy's note comin' doo, I got a letter from Gilroy. I've it right here now. Also mine answerin' it. That's to say, a copy of mine answerin' it. The reason I kep' 'm is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an'—well—when you're dealin' with foxy parties, you got to be foxy to match'm. I won't read you the letters. If you like, you can read'm. They're here for you. Gilroy said 'twas him held your note for Andy. He'd took it over, an' he was writin' me to say that, for the sake o' the days gone by, he wanted to do me a kindness. He said he'd let you off the note. He said, well he knew what a poor provider you was, an' we'd prob'ly none too much, if we had anythin' a tall, an', as for him, he'd plenty, so he'd never miss it, bein' as he is a bachelder, an' right-hand-man to Judge Granville, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.

"I wrote'm back, post-haste, that I thanked'm kindly, but you'd already sent the money to Andy. Such bein' the case, I couldn't o' course take him at his word to let you off the note, but knowin' me so well as he'd used to, he'd know that I'd like nothin' better than take money off'n a friend who meant so kindly by me as his letter showed he did. Bein' that kind of a friend, I said, I knew he'd like to hear you're doin' grand—you're right-hand-man to Mr. Ronald, an' we've all we need an' more, too, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.

"I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I sent it off, to make sure it was all right, an' Gilroy'd know what I meant. Miss Claire laughed when she was through readin' it. She said, it was surely all right, but what he'd read between the lines had illustrations, whatever that means. Anyhow, it stirred up Gilroy somethin' fierce, an'——" Martha paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide. "He wrote to me again. A whole lot o' love-sick trash. I sent his letter back to'm (me keepin' a copy) with just a gentle hint o' warnin' to the effec' that if ever he done the like again, I'd tell you on'm, an' we'd both of us come down to New York by the first train, an' take a turn out of'm—first you, an' then me on your leavin's. Here's the whole co-respondence, Sam. I'm glad to get rid of it. It was clutterin' up my machine-drawer. But, p'raps, before you take it, to lock it away—Mrs. Peckett an' Ma would like to examine it."

Mrs. Peckett shook her head.

"Then you're satisfied I ain't a callyope?" Martha asked her.

"A what?" demanded Sam sharply.

"A callyope. One o' them things whistles on a boat, which, every oncet in a while we'd hear'm on the river, down home. Likewise, they mean coqwette."

"You mean siren?"

"Yes. Sure. They're called both ways. Madam Crewe says all women are sirens. Then you're satisfied I ain't a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"

Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy patronage.

Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment.

"I see you ain't satisfied!"

"I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned, but——"

Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause Mrs. Peckett to come to a sudden halt.

"I know what she means, Sam. Keep cool, an' let me handle this, which I'm the only one can, anyhow. You'd like to know the name o' the party I wrote them letters to, you an' Ma amused yourselves playin' puzzles with? Well, I'll tell you his name. It's Dr. Ballard, an' even you couldn't be so much of a looney as think Dr. Ballard would give a second thought to the likes o' me, that I'd be writin' love-letters to'm, much less him wastin' time to read'm, let alone write me back.

"Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he'd a likin' for this place an' every mother's son in it, which, I s'pose, that means you, too, an' he ast would I write'm, to tell how things was goin' on, an' if Miss Claire an' the baby was gettin' on, an' how Buller was comin' along. I promised I would. An' I kep' my promise, an' I'm goin' to keep on keepin' it. Any objection?"

Mrs. Peckett signified she had none.

"Then all that remains is to say good-by," said Martha gravely, rising and standing with quiet dignity beside her husband.

Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door. Then abruptly she turned and extended her hand to Martha.

Sam Slawson shook his head. "No, you don't!" he forbade decidedly.

"I guess we better wait a while, an' see how we feel about each other later," Martha explained without animus. "My husban' says, 'No, you don't!' so' o' course that settles it for the present, anyhow. It's a kind o' pity things has come to this pass, for I don't like to be on the outs with anybody. But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett. If my husban' had been like some men——! I don't see how you dared do it, knowin' you're a woman, yourself, with a man o' your own. P'raps 'twas because you'd set out to make me over, that you hold me so cheap. I always noticed folks is never so choice o' made-over things. They think the best wear's out of'm anyhow, an' it don't matter if they do use'm sort o' careless now. But it is matter, for it's you'll be blamed for not bein' clean, not the thing you've dirtied. Besides, sometimes a made-over will serve you better than new. I give you leave to remember that, Mrs. Peckett."

When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud.

"The fear is in me heart. I haven't a limb to move, the way I'd be dreadin' Sam's punishin' me!" she moaned, rocking backward and forward in her chair.

"He'll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.

Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother.

"I'll not punish you," he said, "but after what's happened, I guess we'll all feel happier if you make your home away from this."

"I'll die ere ever I'll go back to New York City to live wit' the likes o' them as don't want me!" sobbed the old woman explosively.

"A Home, then. I'll see you settled in a good Home."

Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting there, and turned to Martha. She held up her hands with the mute appeal of a child begging to be carried.

And Martha nodded. She would carry her.

"For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma's only a child, after all. With no more sense, or as much as Sabina. Let her stay, Sam."

CHAPTER XVI

Martha had been gone but a quarter of an hour or so, when Katherine appeared at her grandmother's door.

It had become a purely perfunctory act, this pausing at the sitting-room threshold, and asking, "Can I do anything for you, grandmother?" To-night the answer was startlingly out of the ordinary.

"Yes. Come in. I want to speak to you."

The girl came forward, outwardly calm, inwardly, so shaken with a morbid dread of what might await her, that she dared not venture to speak, for fear her voice would betray her.

"Light the lamp."

Her uncertain fingers fumbled the first match, till it dropped to the floor. The second went out, before she could guide it to the wick. Only at the third attempt was she successful—and she knew her grandmother despised clumsy inefficiency.

"Where have you been?"

"To the Ronalds. We're getting up a course of lectures, don't you remember, for the natives—to run through the winter."

"The natives to run through the winter?"

Katherine shrank back hypersensitively from the foolish banter.

"I am doing the work. Mr. Ronald is giving the money."

"A very proper arrangement."

"It has kept me busy. I hope you haven't felt neglected."

"Not in the least. As usual, everything has been done for me that had to be done."

The little old woman was trying her best to act on Martha's advice, but her tongue, sharpened by years of skilful practice, could not sheathe its keen edge all at once. When next she spoke, it was with so studied a mildness that Katherine stared at her, wondering.

"You probably met Slawson as you came in? You must have passed her on the road."

"No, the Ronalds brought me home in their car. We drove out along the mountain-road, to see the foliage. We came back the other way."

"Well, get your things off now. And when you've had your dinner, come back to me. Or—no! I'll ring!"

It darted through Katherine's mind that her grandmother spoke with singular self-repression. Again she regarded her with puzzled eyes. Such moderation could only breed suspicion, in a mind grown abnormal in solitary confinement.

The girl ate no dinner.

It was late before she heard the silver tinkle that sounded, in her ears, like the crack of doom.

It was well her grandmother bade her, with a gesture, to sit down. Her quaking knees would hardly have borne her, standing.

"I'm a coward! A poor, weak coward!" she confessed to herself bitterly, resenting her weakness, yet apparently powerless to control it.

"I've been thinking over what you told me, and I have concluded to change my tactics with regard to you," the old woman plunged in, without preamble. "Perhaps I've made a mistake in the past, keeping from you things you should have known. All I can say is, I acted in good faith, for your best."

Katherine smiled faintly. "Isn't that what parents always say when they punish?"

Madam Crewe raised her chin in her old supercilious manner, then quickly lowered it.

"I don't know. I've had no experience. I never punished. Perhaps that is where I made my mistake."

Again Katherine's lips curled slightly in a wry smile.

"You need have no regrets there, grandmother. You have nothing to make up to me on that score."

"You mean I have punished you?"

"Oh—very thoroughly."

"Curious! I can't see myself doing it."

"I can't see you not doing it!"

Madam Crewe, in her turn, stared, surprised. Katherine was acting out of all character, in quite a new, unaccountable fashion.

"I suppose I must take your word for it," her grandmother admitted with an odd sigh. "Be kind enough not to interrupt. You know the story of the man I did not marry. Now you shall hear the story of the man I did marry.

"My father took me abroad after—after the Ballard fiasco. I did not care where I went, what I did. I was quite broken down. Quite, as Slawson would say, 'broken up.' Nothing made any difference to me. Everything was distasteful.

"One day, in London, my father brought a young man to me, introducing him as my future husband. That was all there was to it. I neither objected, nor approved. I had no mother. I did not understand.

"We were married almost immediately—my new lover was very eager. He urged haste. Almost immediately I discovered that my father had been duped by a cheap adventurer, a man without heart or conscience. A poor, weak wretch of profligate habits, a liar, a cheat. He had posed in society as a man of means, heir to a title. He was nothing of the sort. All those he had brought to stand sponsor for him, were hirelings paid to mislead us.

"For a long time I tried to hide the truth from my father. When, at last, he learned it, it killed him. He died in a fit of apoplexy, brought on by rage against the man who had gulled him.

"My fortune was large. My husband squandered a considerable part, before I had sense to take steps to save it. He was a spendthrift. He forged my name on checks, he stole from my purse. I presume you wonder why I did not rid myself of him? In those days divorces were not the casual things they are now. A woman divorced, was a woman disgraced. Moreover, there was the boy. For his sake I bore, forbore. For his sake, I fought to save my fortune. He was my one hope. He was to make up, by his perfect rightness, for all that was wrong in my universe. I suppose I spoiled him. Slawson says you can't spoil a good child. If that is so, my boy must have been bad from the beginning. This I know, he was always his father's child. He had none of me in him. As a baby, he was full of soft, coaxing ways. It was torture to see them gradually becoming smooth, calculating, treacherous.

"Sit still! I know he was your father—but he was my son first. I used to pray, night after night, that he might not live to follow in his father's footsteps. Useless. The taint was too strong.

"He married your mother precisely as your grandfather had married me. I would have prevented it, if I had known. It was all so carefully, secretly arranged that I did not know. Your mother was sacrificed, as I had been. Her fortune was swept away. She died when you were hardly more than a baby. I was glad when she died. She was out of it.

"Your father brought you to me to be cared for. The sight of you, in your little black ribbons, was a constant reproach. I was afraid to look into your eyes, for fear I should see in them what had killed your mother.

"One thing I determined, that you were not to be spoiled. I would bring you up as well as I could. I had failed with your father. I would try a different method with you. I repeat, I acted in good faith. I did my best.

"Your father died suddenly—no matter how—enough that 'twas disgracefully. Within a twelve-month, I was a widow. Behind my crêpe I humbly thanked Almighty God.

"When I came to settle up my estate, I found myself practically impoverished. That is, everything had been so attached, encumbered, I could get no benefit from it. My income must be turned back to the estate, to save it. My only salvation—yours—was to cut myself off from all but a pittance, until every claim had been met, and I stood free and quit. That has been done. I owe no man anything. I have sacrificed much, but not my integrity, and not one acre, one security belonging to the property your great-grandfather left me, rescued from my husband. It is all intact. Your inheritance——"

Katherine was on her feet in an instant.

"Inheritance!" she blazed. "You have just told me what my inheritance is! Fraud, lies, treachery—everything that is base. What does money matter to a creature like me? I can never get away from what I am. As you say, 'the taint is too strong!' Hush! I am speaking now. And I'm going to speak, and you've got to listen! For once in my life, I am going to have my say—I'm going to forget I am young and you are old, and I'm going to let you know what I have been feeling, thinking, being all these years, when you've thought I was a tame thing you could order about, and scold and ridicule, to the top of your bent.

"I know, now, why I was a lonely, unloved child. I've always wondered, before, for I tried to be good—even when I was too much of a baby to be anything else. I know, now, why you watched me out of the corners of your eyes, as if you were waiting for me to try to deceive you, in some way. You were waiting for my 'inheritance' to crop out. How could I ever have been anything, but at my worst with you? How could I be clever, when you insisted I was dull? How could I be myself, when you condemned me, by your fears, to be my grandfather, and my father? What you waited for, came. Of course it would. I stole, I lied. I was a coward. 'The taint was too strong!'

"But let me tell you this, it needn't have been so. I could have been saved if, when I was a child—— Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"

She shrank together into a wretched heap on the floor, her head bowed on her knees.

Madam Crewe gazed at her, a strange shadow creeping over her face. As if to herself, she murmured, "That is what your grandfather used to plead—and your father. Whenever they were discomforted, they always said they couldn't bear it. So they didn't bear it. I—and others—had to bear it."

The sound of her voice, low as it was, brought Katherine to her feet. All the pent-in passion of her life, breaking loose now, beat mercilessly down upon the defenseless old woman before her. In some unaccountable way, the two seemed to have changed places. It was she who dominated, her grandmother who submitted.

The lamp burned low, sending out a rank odor that filled the room. The clock struck out three deep bell-notes.

Katherine, shuddering, sobbing, felt herself caught up in the whirlwind-strength of a new impulse. She turned her back on her grandmother. A moment, and the door of her own chamber shut her in.

Madam Crewe's head fell forward upon her breast.

* * * * *

The clock had just struck half-past five, when Martha groped her way downstairs.

She had her work "cut out for her," as she would have expressed it, and must start in promptly. She had just kindled a new fire in the kitchen-range, and was about to set out for the henhouse, and cow-barn, when a step on the porch brought her up standing.

In a second she had crossed the room, swung open the kitchen-door.

"Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless undertone of one brought face to face with a dread turned reality.