ime
later and pronounced the old man dead. "He had to go. Today, tomorrow.
Soon."

After that, he put Mrs. DeBrugh to bed and turned to Letty.

"Mrs. DeBrugh is merely suffering from a slight shock. There is nothing
more that I can do. When she awakens, see that she stays in bed. For the
rest of the day."

He left then, and Letty felt a strange coldness about the place,
something that had not been there while Mr. DeBrugh was alive.

She went downstairs and made several telephone calls which she knew
would be necessary. Later, when Mrs. DeBrugh was feeling better, other
arrangements could be made.

She straightened the furniture in the study, pushing the familiar sofa
back in place, from where Mr. DeBrugh invariably moved it. Then she
knocked the ashes from the meerschaum, wiped it off, and placed it
carefully in the little glass cabinet on the wall where he always kept
it.

Times would be different now, she knew. She remembered what he had said.
"You will be well taken care of." But there had been something else.
"After _Mrs. DeBrugh+ and I are gone."

Letty could no longer hold back the tears. She fell into a chair and
they poured forth.

But time always passes, and with it goes a healing balm for most all
sorrows. First there was the funeral. Then came other arrangements. And
there was the will, which Mrs. DeBrugh never mentioned.

His things would have fallen into decay but for the hands of Letty.
Always her dust-cloth made his study immaculate. Always the sofa was in
place and the pipe, clean and shining, in the cabinet.

There was a different hardness about Mrs. DeBrugh. No longer was she
content with driving Letty like a slave day in and day out. She became
even more unbearable.

There were little things, like taking away her privilege of having
Saturday afternoons off. And the occasional "forgetting" of Letty's
weekly pay.

Once Letty thought of leaving during the night, of packing her few
clothes and going for ever from the house. But that was foolish. There
was no place to go, and she was getting too old for maid service.

Besides, hadn't Mr. DeBrugh said she would be taken care of. "After
_Mrs. DeBrugh+ and I are gone." Perhaps she would not live much longer.

And then one morning Mrs. DeBrugh called Letty in to talk with her. It
was the hour Letty had been awaiting--and dreading.

There was a harsh, gloating tone in Mrs. DeBrugh's voice as she spoke.
She was the master now. There was no He