iscilla. I appreciate your
intentions, thoroughly, believe me."

There was a cowed note in her voice which Mrs. Pantin detected. She
smiled faintly.

"I don't know when I've spent such a delightful afternoon," and kissed
her.

Mrs. Toomey curbed an impulse to bite her friend as she returned the
parting salute.

"And I've so enjoyed having you," she murmured.

* * * * *

Mrs. Toomey turned pale when she looked through the front window and saw
Kate, a few days after Mrs. Pantin's visit, dismount and tie her horse
to the cottonwood sapling, for the threat, which held for her all the
import of a Ku-Klux warning, had been hanging over her like the sword of
Damocles.

It had haunted her by day, and at night she could not sleep for thinking
of it, and yet she was no nearer reaching a decision than when the
struggle between her conscience and her cowardice had started.

Quite instinctively she glanced again to see if the neighbors were
looking. There were interested faces at several windows. Mrs. Toomey had
a sudden feeling of irritation, not with the sentinels doing picket duty
but with Kate for tying her horse in front so conspicuously. Mrs. Toomey
shrank from the staring eyes as though she had found herself walking
down the middle of the road in her underclothing.

The feeling vanished when Kate came up the walk slowly and she saw how
white and haggard the girl's face was.

Mrs. Toomey opened the door and asked her in nervously.

Kate looked at her wistfully as though she yearned for some display of
affection beyond the conventional greeting, but since Mrs. Toomey did
not offer to kiss her she sank into a chair with a suggestion of
weariness.

"I hope you're not busy--that I'm not bothering?"

"Oh, no--not at all."

"I couldn't help coming, somehow--I just couldn't go back without seeing
you. I wanted to see a friendly face--to hear a friendly voice." She
clasped her fingers tightly together: "Oh, you don't know how much you
mean to me! I feel so alone--adrift--and I long so for some one to lean
on, just for a little, until I get my bearings. It seems as though every
atom of courage and confidence had oozed out of me. I don't believe that
ever again in all my life I'll long for sympathy as I do this minute."
She spoke slowly with breaths between, as though the heaviness of her
heart made talking an effort.

"I presume you miss your--uncle." There was a constraint i