significantly.

"All right," said the man sullenly, "what do you want?"

She was smiling again--the round, keen smile, on its high frame. "Let
her breathe a bit--like a child--and run out in the sun. The sun will
cure her!" she added quickly.

"All right--if you take the risk--a hundred-thousand-dollars--and your
own daughter thrown to the devil--if we lose--!... You know _that_!"

"I know that, John--I want the money--more than you want it!" She spoke
with quick, fierce loyalty. "I'd give my life for Mollie--or to keep
her straight--but I can't kill a child to keep her straight--not _this_
child--to keep her straight!" Her queer, round face worked, against the
yellow light.

He looked at it, half contemptuously, and turned to the barrel.

"See if everything's all right," he said. "If we're going to take
risks--we've got to be ready."

The woman lifted the lantern, and he pushed against the barrel. It
yielded to his weight--the upper part turning slowly on a pivot.
Something inside swashed against the sides as it turned. The man bent
over the hole and peered in. He stepped down cautiously, feeling with
his foot and disappearing, inch by inch, into the opening. The woman
held the light above him, looking down with quick, tense eyes... a hand
reached up to her, out of the hole, beckoning for the lantern and she
knelt down, guiding it toward the waving fingers. A sound of something
creaking--a hinge half turned--caught her breath--and she leaned
forward, blowing at the lantern. She got quickly to her feet and groped
for the swinging barrel, turning it swiftly over the hole--the liquid
chugged softly against its side--and stopped. Her breath listened up
into the darkness. The door above creaked again softly--and a shuffling
foot groped at the stair. "You down there--Lena?" called an old voice.

She laughed out softly, moving toward the stair. "Go to bed, father."

"What you doing down there?" asked the old voice in the darkness.

"Testing the barrel," said the woman. "John's gone down." She came to
the foot of the stair. "You go to bed, father--"

"_You_ better come to bed--all of ye," grumbled the old man.

"We're coming--in a minute." She heard his hand fumble at the door--and
it creaked again--softly--and closed.

She groped her way back to the barrel, waiting beside it in the
darkness.

XXIX

UPSTAIRS

When the man's head reappeared, he came up briskly.

"All right?" she asked.

"All right,"