company. I lay there, wide awake, thinking about Mr.
Pitman's death, and how I had come, by degrees, to be keeping a cheap
boarding-house in the flood district, and to having to take impudence
from everybody who chose to rent a room from me, and to being called
a she-devil. From that I got to thinking again about the Ladleys, and
how she had said he was a fiend, and to doubting about his having gone
out for medicine for her. I dozed off again at daylight, and being
worn out, I slept heavily.

At seven o'clock Mr. Reynolds came to the door, dressed for the store.
He was a tall man of about fifty, neat and orderly in his habits, and
he always remembered that I had seen better days, and treated me as a
lady.

"Never mind about breakfast for me this morning, Mrs. Pitman," he
said. "I'll get a cup of coffee at the other end of the bridge. I'll
take the boat and send it back with Terry."

He turned and went along the hall and down to the boat. I heard him
push off from the stairs with an oar and row out into the street.
Peter followed him to the stairs.

At a quarter after seven Mr. Ladley came out and called to me: "Just
bring in a cup of coffee and some toast," he said. "Enough for one."

He went back and slammed his door, and I made his coffee. I steeped a
cup of tea for Mrs. Ladley at the same time. He opened the door just
wide enough for the tray, and took it without so much as a "thank
you." He had a cigarette in his mouth as usual, and I could see a fire
in the grate and smell something like scorching cloth.

"I hope Mrs. Ladley is better," I said, getting my foot in the crack
of the door, so he could not quite close it. It smelled to me as if he
had accidentally set fire to something with his cigarette, and I tried
to see into the room.

"What about Mrs. Ladley?" he snapped.

"You said she was ill last night."

"Oh, yes! Well, she wasn't very sick. She's better."

"Shall I bring her some tea?"

"Take your foot away!" he ordered. "No. She doesn't want tea. She's
not here."

"Not here!"

"Good heavens!" he snarled. "Is her going away anything to make such
a fuss about? The Lord knows I'd be glad to get out of this infernal
pig-wallow myself."

"If you mean my house--" I began.

But he had pulled himself together and was more polite when he
answered. "I mean the neighborhood. Your house is all that could be
desired for the money. If we do not have linen sheets and double
cream, we are paying muslin