streak on the side of her thin face.

"Hello, Arthur," she said when I came up on the porch. She shook my hand
as limply as always, and gave me a reluctant duty peck on the cheek,
then backed into the house to give me room to enter.

I glanced around the familiar surroundings, waiting for her to blurt out
the cause of her telegram, and feeling a little guilty about not having
come at once.

I felt the loneliness inside her more than I ever had before. There was
a terror way back in her eyes.

"You look tired, Arthur," she said.

"Yes," I said, glad of the opportunity she had given me to explain. "I
had to finish my thesis and get it in by last night. Two solid years of
hard work and it had to be done or the whole thing was for nothing.
That's why I couldn't come four days ago. And you seemed quite insistent
that I shouldn't call." I smiled to let her know that I remembered about
party lines in a small town.

"It's just as well," she said. And while I was trying to decide what the
antecedent of her remark was she said, "You can go back on the morning
train."

"You mean the trouble is over?" I said, relieved.

"Yes," she said. But she had hesitated.

It was the first time I had ever seen her tell a lie.

"You must be hungry," she rushed on. "Put your suitcase in the room and
wash up." She turned her back to me and hurried into the kitchen.

I was hungry. The memory of her homey cooking did it. I glanced around
the front room. Nothing had changed, I thought. Then I noticed the
framed portrait of my father and his three brothers was hanging where
the large print of a basket of fruit used to hang. The basket of fruit
picture was where the portrait should have been, and it was entirely too
big a picture for that spot. I would never have thought Aunt Matilda
could tolerate anything out of proportion. And the darker area of
wallpaper where the fruit picture had prevented fading stood out like a
sore thumb.

I looked around the room for other changes. The boat picture that had
hung to the right of the front door was not there. On the floor under
where it should have been I caught the flash of light from a shard of
glass. Next to it, the drape framing the window was not hanging right.

On impulse I went over and peeked behind the drape. There, leaning
against the wall, was the boat picture with fragments of splintered
glass still in it.

* * * * *

From the evidence it appeared t