ome home to
be shot in the back by a tramp with a gun! Where is the man? You
detained him, didn't you? Don't tell me you let him go."

"I know where to find him," Raven temporized. "He'd no idea of going."

She insisted.

"You think it was an accident? He couldn't have had a grudge. Dick
hadn't an enemy."

"You can make your mind easy about that," said Raven, taking refuge in a
detached sincerity. "It wasn't meant for Dick. He was as far from the
fellow's thoughts as the moon."

He remembered the fringe of somber woods and the curve of the new moon.

"It isn't so much the misfortunes of life," Milly kept on. She was
beating her knee now with one closed hand and her voice kept time. "It's
the chances, the horrible way things come and knock you down because
you're in their path. If he doesn't"--here she stopped and Raven knew
she added, in her own mind, "if he doesn't live--I shall never believe
in anything again. Never, John, never!"

Raven was silent, not only because it seemed well for her to free her
mind, but because he had a sudden curiosity to hear more. This was Milly
outside her armor at last. When she had caught him out of his armor, she
had proposed sending him to the Psychopathic, and here she was herself,
raving against heaven and earth as unrestrainedly as a savage woman
might beat her head against a cliff.

"Chance!" she repeated. "That's what it is, chance! He got in the way
and he was struck. I lived through the War. I gave my son. What more
could I do? But now, to have him come home to our old house and be shot
in the back! How can you sit there and not move a muscle or say a word?
What are you thinking about?"

"Well," said Raven quietly, "if you'll believe me, I'm thinking about
you. I'm mighty sorry for you, Milly. And I'm keeping one ear cocked for
Nan."

"There's no change," she interrupted him. "Charlotte would tell us. I
left Nan on purpose. I want him, every time he opens his eyes, to see
her there. She's the one he wants. Mothers don't count." Here again the
elemental woman flashed out and Raven welcomed the reality of it. "She
couldn't help being kind, with him as he is."

No, he inwardly concurred, Nan, who had kissed the boy to hearten him in
his need, would be ready with her medicinal love again. She'd pour
herself out: trust her for that.

"Besides," he said, "besides you and Dick and Nan, I was thinking of Old
Crow."

"Old Crow?" This threw her out for an instant and she w