ve years ago he ran
away with a girl from the village. He did not marry her. I believe he
was willing at one time, but his father opposed it violently. It would
have been to recognize a thing he refused to recognize." He turned
suddenly to Anne. "Don't you think this is going to be painful?" he
asked.

"Why? I know it all."

"Very well. This girl--the one Carlo ran away with--determined to make
the family pay for that refusal. She made them actually pay, year by
year. Emily knew about it. She had to pinch to make the payments. The
father sat in a sort of detached position, in the center of Bolivar
County, and let her bear the brunt of it. I shall never forget the day
she learned there was a child. It--well, it sickened her. She had not
known about those things. And I imagine, if we could know, that that was
the beginning of things.

"And all the time there was the necessity for secrecy. She had never
known deceit, and now she was obliged to practice it constantly. She had
no one to talk to. Her father, beyond making entries of the amounts paid
to the woman in the case, had nothing to do with it. She bore it all,
year after year. And it ate, like a cancer.

"Remember, I never knew. I, who would have done anything for her--she
never told me. Carlo lived hard and came back to die. The father went.
She nursed them both. I came every day, and I never suspected. Only,
now and then, I wondered about her. She looked burned. I don't know any
other word.

"Then, the night after Carlo had been buried, she telephoned for me.
It was eleven o'clock, She met me, out there in the hall, and she said,
'John, I have killed somebody.'

"I thought she was out of her mind. But she opened the door, and--"

He turned and glanced at Anne.

"Please!" she said.

"It was Anne's mother. You have guessed it about Anne by now, of course.
It seems that the funeral had taken the money for the payment that was
due, and there had been a threat of exposure. And Emily had reached the
breaking-point. I believe what she said--that she had no intention
even of striking her. You can't take the act itself. You have to take
twenty-five years into account. Anyhow, she picked up a chair and
knocked the woman down. And it killed her." He ran his fingers through
his heavy hair. "It should not have killed her," he reflected. "There
must have been some other weakness, heart or something. I don't know.
But it was a heavy chair. I don't see how Emily--"

H