e, you don't owe me anything!"

"Oh, Katharine Comstock!" groaned Elvira Carney, clinging to the fence
for support.

"Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, 'The wages of sin is
death,' doesn't it?" asked Mrs. Comstock. "Instead of doing a woman's
work in life, you chose the smile of invitation, and the dress of
unearned cloth. Now you tell me you are marked to burn to death with the
unquenchable fire. And him! It was shorter with him, but let me tell you
he got his share! He left me with an untruth on his lips, for he told
me he was going to take his violin to Onabasha for a new key, when he
carried it to you. Every vow of love and constancy he ever made me was a
lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong side of
the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was coming, it
reached out for him, and it got him. It didn't hurry, either! It sucked
him down, slow and deliberate."

"Mercy!" groaned Elvira Carney. "Mercy!"

"I don't know the word," said Mrs. Comstock. "You took all that out of
me long ago. The past twenty years haven't been of the sort that taught
mercy. I've never had any on myself and none on my child. Why in the
name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both
older than I, both strong, sane people, you deliberately chose your
course when you lured him, and he, when he was unfaithful to me. When a
Loose Man and a Light Woman face the end the Almighty ordained for them,
why should they shout at me for mercy? What did I have to do with it?"

Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.

"You've got tears, have you?" marvelled Mrs. Comstock. "Mine all dried
long ago. I've none left to shed over my wasted life, my disfigured face
and hair, my years of struggle with a man's work, my wreck of land among
the tilled fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that the man
I so gladly would have died to save, wasn't worth the sacrifice of a
rattlesnake. If anything yet could wring a tear from me, it would be the
thought of the awful injustice I always have done my girl. If I'd lay
hand on you for anything, it would be for that."

"Kill me if you want to," sobbed Elvira Carney. "I know that I deserve
it, and I don't care."

"You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me," said Mrs.
Comstock. "I wouldn't touch you, any more than I would him, if I could.
Once is all any man or woman deceives me about the holiest things of
life. I wouldn't touch you any