the partic'lars to-morrow, I do' know's Ad'line's livin' now. We
got her right to bed's I told you, and I set right off considerin'
that I could git over the ground fastest of any. Mis' Thacher of
course wouldn't leave and Jane's heavier than I be." Martin's smile
was happily concealed by the darkness; his wife and her sister had
both grown stout steadily as they grew older, but each insisted upon
the other's greater magnitude and consequent incapacity for quick
movement. A casual observer would not have been persuaded that there
was a pound's weight of difference between them.

Martin Dyer meekly suggested that perhaps he'd better go in a minute
to see if there was anything Mis' Thacher needed, but Eliza, his wife,
promptly said that she didn't want anything but the doctor as quick as
she could get him, and disappeared up the short lane while the wagon
rattled away up the road. The white mist from the river clung close to
the earth, and it was impossible to see even the fences near at hand,
though overhead there were a few dim stars. The air had grown somewhat
softer, yet there was a sharp chill in it, and the ground was wet and
sticky under foot. There were lights in the bedroom and in the kitchen
of the Thacher house, but suddenly the bedroom candle flickered away
and the window was darkened. Mrs. Martin's heart gave a quick throb,
perhaps Adeline had already died. It might have been a short-sighted
piece of business that she had gone home for her husband.

IV

LIFE AND DEATH

The sick woman had refused to stay in the bedroom after she had come
to her senses. She had insisted that she could not breathe, and that
she was cold and must go back to the kitchen. Her mother and Mrs. Jake
had wrapped her in blankets and drawn the high-backed wooden rocking
chair close to the stove, and here she was just established when Mrs.
Martin opened the outer door. Any one of less reliable nerves would
have betrayed the shock which the sight of such desperate illness must
have given. The pallor, the suffering, the desperate agony of the
eyes, were far worse than the calmness of death, but Mrs. Martin spoke
cheerfully, and even when her sister whispered that their patient had
been attacked by a haemorrhage, she manifested no concern.

"How long has this be'n a-goin' on, Ad'line? Why didn't you come home
before and get doctored up? You're all run down." Mrs. Thacher looked
frightened when this questioning began, but turned