lure she had put forward to Love, the
garland she had set in place to show Creed how fine a housewife she was,
how grandly she would keep his home for him. The brave red roses, the
bold laughing red roses, their crimson challenge was shrivelled to
darkened shreds, each golden heart was a pinch of black dust; only the
thorny stems remained to show what queen of blossoms had been there.

She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long
absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling
passionate sobs in its white covering.

"It's most twelve o'clock, Jude," whimpered Cliantha.

"Hit's come on to rain," supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty
spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls
went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor
with the three portions of bread and salt about it.

The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith,
wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their
anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when
she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely
about her and wept so much.

"Pendrilly an' me has done put our pins in close to the bottom," Cliantha
explained deprecatingly. "Hit wouldn't do any good to have Andy an' Jeff
come trompin' in here--though I shore would love to see either or both of
'em this minute," she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and
the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the
opening.

"Push the candle back whar the draught won't git a fair chance at it,"
quavered Pendrilla. "We're obliged to have the do' open, or what comes
cain't git in. An' we mustn't ne'er a one of us say a word from now on,
or hit'll break the charm."

Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top
where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a
passionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then
she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and
the three waited with pale faces.

The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of
mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads,
and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head,
cocked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath.

"What's that?" gasped Cliantha. "Didn't