ncestral cottage--which had
never even been worth selling. His daughter had an operation, and the
shock of that, _plus_ the shock of his death, _plus_ the shock of her
impoverishment, brought the curtain down with a tremendous rush that
terrified the house. It may make my metaphor clearer if I put it that it
was the asbestos curtain which fell suddenly and violently; not the
great crimson drop that swings gracefully down at the end of a play. It
did not mark the end; it marked a catastrophe in the wings to which the
plot must give place.

Then they carried Kathleen Somers to the hills.

* * * * *

It was Mildred Thurston who told me about it first. Withrow would have
rushed to the hills, I think, but he was in British Columbia on an
extended trip. He had fought for three months and got them, and he
started just before Kathleen Somers had her sudden operation. Mildred
Thurston (Withrow's cousin, by the way) threw herself nobly into the
breach. I am not going into the question of Mildred Thurston here.
Perhaps if Withrow had been at home, she wouldn't have gone. I don't
know. Anyhow, when she rushed to Kathleen Somers's desolate retreat she
did it, apparently, from pure kindness. She was sure, like every one
else, that Kathleen would die; and that belief purged her, for the time
being, of selfishness and commonness and cheap gayety. I wouldn't take
Mildred Thurston's word about a state of soul; but she was a good
dictograph. She came back filled with pity; filled, at least, with the
means of inspiring pity for the exile in others.

After I had satisfied myself that Kathleen Somers was physically on the
mend, eating and sleeping fairly, and sitting up a certain amount, I
proceeded to more interesting questions.

"What is it like?"

"It's dreadful."

"How dreadful?"

Mildred's large blue eyes popped at me with sincere sorrow.

"Well, there's no plumbing, and no furnace."

"Is it in a village?"

"It isn't 'in' anything. It's a mile and a half from a station called
Hebron. You have to change three times to get there. It's half-way up a
hill--the house is--and there are mountains all about, and the barn is
connected with the house by a series of rickety woodsheds, and there are
places where the water comes through the roof. They put pails under to
catch it. There are queer little contraptions they call Franklin stoves
in most of the rooms and a brick oven in the kitchen. When they