ite as death and said something about
getting ready to bring me a check. I told him I was much obliged, but
I would take it along with me--and I did. Here it is--fourteen hundred
dollars, plus interest. And I got it by the skin of my teeth. I didn't
stop to argue with him for I saw the storm coming on. I went racing, but
a half mile north I skidded into the ditch. I really feel like leaving
the car there all night, but it would do a lot of damage. I'll have
to get a team and drag it in. I call it a good day's work. What do you
say?" He looked at her closely, for the first time noticing her drawn
face and far-away look.

"What's the matter? You look goopy--"

Rose settled herself heavily in the rocker close to the table.

"You're not sick, are you?"

She shook her head a few times and answered: "He's in there--"

"Who?" Martin straightened up ready for anything.

"Billy--"

"Oh!" A light flashed into Martin's face. "So he has come back, has he?
Back home? What made him change toward this place? Is he here to stay?"

"No, Martin--"

"Then if he hasn't come to his senses, what is he doing here--here in my
house, the home he hates--"

"He doesn't hate it now," Rose replied, struggling for words that she
might express herself and end this cruel conversation, but all she could
do was to point nervously toward the spare room.

"What is he doing in there? It's the one spot that Rose can call her
own, poor child."

"He's on the bed, Martin--"

"What's the matter with the davenport he's always slept on? Is he sick?
What in heaven's name is going on in this house?"

As Martin started toward the bedroom, his wife opened her lips to tell
him the truth but the words refused to come; at the same instant it
struck her that not to speak was brutal, yet just. She would let
Martin go to this bed with words of anger on his lips, with feelings of
unkindness in his heart. She would do this. Savage? Yes, but why not?
There seemed to be something fair about it. Then her heart-strings
pulled more strongly than ever. No; it was too hard. She must stop him,
tell him, prepare him. But before the words came, he was out of the room
and when she spoke he did not hear her because of the rain.

He saw the vague lines of the boy's body, hidden by the sheet, and
thought quickly, "Bill's old ostrich-like trick," and while at the same
instant something told him that a terrible thing had happened, the idea
did not register completely unti