bout he began to complain.
"I've never been let alone," he said. "Although I've
worked hard I've not made the hotel pay. Even now I owe
money at the bank. You'll find that out when I'm gone."

The voice of the sick man became tense with
earnestness. Being unable to arise, he put out his hand
and pulled the girl's head down beside his own.
"There's a way out," he whispered. "Don't marry Tom
Willard or anyone else here in Winesburg. There is
eight hundred dollars in a tin box in my trunk. Take it
and go away."

Again the sick man's voice became querulous. "You've
got to promise," he declared. "If you won't promise not
to marry, give me your word that you'll never tell Tom
about the money. It is mine and if I give it to you
I've the right to make that demand. Hide it away. It is
to make up to you for my failure as a father. Some time
it may prove to be a door, a great open door to you.
Come now, I tell you I'm about to die, give me your
promise."

* * *

In Doctor Reefy's office, Elizabeth, a tired gaunt old
woman at forty-one, sat in a chair near the stove and
looked at the floor. By a small desk near the window
sat the doctor. His hands played with a lead pencil
that lay on the desk. Elizabeth talked of her life as a
married woman. She became impersonal and forgot her
husband, only using him as a lay figure to give point
to her tale. "And then I was married and it did not
turn out at all," she said bitterly. "As soon as I had
gone into it I began to be afraid. Perhaps I knew too
much before and then perhaps I found out too much
during my first night with him. I don't remember.

"What a fool I was. When father gave me the money and
tried to talk me out of the thought of marriage, I
would not listen. I thought of what the girls who were
married had said of it and I wanted marriage also. It
wasn't Tom I wanted, it was marriage. When father went
to sleep I leaned out of the window and thought of the
life I had led. I didn't want to be a bad woman. The
town was full of stories about me. I even began to be
afraid Tom would change his mind."

The woman's voice began to quiver with excitement. To
Doctor Reefy, who without realizing what was happening
had begun to love her, there came an odd illusion. He
thought that as she talked the woman's body was
changing, that she was becoming younger, straighter,
stronger. When he could not shake off the illusion his
mind gave it a professional twis