friends seemed to lay a spell upon Martha. Caring for her as if she were
of the household, Deems and his wife were gratified by the change that
apparently was coming over their charge.

In their room, after Martha had bid them good night, Deems questioned
his wife.

"And how is Martha behavin', now?"

"You couldn't tell she's the same woman. Remember how she was when we
found her at the door that night--all mumbling and frightened so she
couldn't talk? Well, now she's calm and happy like. What she needed was
being with some one."

The quietness of her surroundings had had its effect on Martha. They
showed in the calm self-possession with which she walked about,
persisting in her efforts to help Mrs. Lennon in her household work. The
atmosphere of bustling activity--Deems's coming and going from the
village, from the cemetery, whither he went with his trowel and spade to
keep in repairs the many graves and plots on the hillside--all this
seemed to have drawn on some reservoir of unsuspected vitality and
composure within Martha.

These were the visible effects. In fact, however, there had grown in
Martha's mind a plan--a desire to cut herself forever free of Jim's
sinister possession--and this plan she fed from a reservoir of nervous
power that was fear and terror converted into cunning and despair. She
went about the house not as if relieved of fear of Jim, but cautiously,
as if somewhere in back of her mind was a way out, a way out, to win
which required care and watchfulness.

In this spirit she observed Deems's movements about the house until she
learned where he left his lantern and the box where he put away his
trowel and mallet and chisel. Now that the plan was clear in her own
mind, there was nothing to do but carry it out. She would cut the
dreadful tie that held her to Jim--the tie, the potency of which gave to
the dead man the power of holding her so completely. Reckoning thus, she
became wary of her companions as if fearing that they might in some way
interfere with her plans if they got wind of them. She knew that her
every move was watched, for she found that Mrs. Lennon had constituted
herself her guardian. Since her coming to the house, she had never left
its shelter, finding at first that companionship and reassurance which
gave her courage and resolution against Jim and the power to survive the
terror of thought of him, and finding finally that, with the formation
of her plan, she would have to