gain--"but to-morrow, next day. We'll all go. Mr. Ewing is going." Her
eyes rested on Ewing a moment, then, with a difficult smile, she turned
to her brother. "And Virgie must go, too. Telegraph her to-night. She'll
make us gay, she'll make us--as we used to be. We couldn't go without
Virgie. She will--comfort us."

"She'll go, too, Sis. It's all right. I'll telegraph. But what are you
afraid of? You'll be a well woman there in a month."

"Afraid--I afraid?" She looked up at him in wonder. "I don't know. Oh,
yes I do. Why, I just tried to kill--I've just killed--killed a hundred
people--killed----"

"Good Lord--there--she's fainted! Get some water and a drop of brandy,
dad!"

"Poor child--it's so fearfully unpleasant," murmured Bartell as he came
back with a glass and decanter. "It's that tenement house thing that's
got on her nerves."

"An unpleasant business," returned his father, "all that rot--mighty
unpleasant!"

Ewing waited in the outer room until he heard the broken murmur of her
voice and knew that she had recovered. Then he went quickly out, the
portrait under his arm. He had the feeling that it had been contaminated
by Teevan's touch.

He began dismantling his studio that night. He stopped in the work once
to look out over the roofs, glowing luridly under a half moon. This was
because the pleading of the woman still rang in his ears--"Don't let him
tell you anything"--and the whole entreating look of her flashed back to
him. Then the big, slow tears of pity gathered in his eyes to set the
chimney pots dancing before him.

"If only I hadn't owed him money!" he muttered, beside himself with pity
and hatred.

It was not until the day before they started West that Mrs. Laithe
learned the secret of this pity of Ewing's that had so puzzled her.
Alden Teevan begged a moment with her in the afternoon of that day, and
she, sunk in the languor of her sickness, received him where she lay, in
her own sitting-room.

He swept her with a long, knowing look as he entered, reading, she saw,
the truth about her condition.

"I'd gladly go with you, Nell," he began--"let my own walls close at the
same time." But she would have no bald admissions.

"I'm not going, Alden--I'm only a bit run down. I shall pick up in a
month out there." He detected her insincerity but only smiled in a hurt
way.

"That's one of your rules of the game, isn't it, to keep up the
pretense? Of course I can't expect you to break rules for