ou're _free_, now,
darlin'--free--ain't you?"

"'Sh-h-h-h!"

"Free, darlin'--think--there ain't nothin' can hold you! A hundred
dollars' benefit-money and--"

"Gawd, Cottie--Cottie--'sh-h-h! Him layin' in there dead! It--it ain't
no time to talk about that now. Anyways, you're the one to go. I'll stay
with maw."

Her words tumbled, and her tones were galvanized with fear and fear's
offspring, superstition. She glanced toward the half-open door with eyes
two shades too dark.

"No, no, Della; you're the oldest. You go first, and I--I'll stick it
out with maw till--she's gettin' feebler every day, Delia, and I'll be
joinin' you some day not far off."

"'Sh-h-h; it ain't right. I--I'll give her--half the benefit-money,
Cottie, but it's a sin to--"

"You and folks make me sick. If the devil hisself was to die you'd
snivel and bury him in priest's robes. What John _was_ he _was_--dyin'
didn't change it. Ten days ago you were standin' at this very window
answering his signal and hating him with every swing of the lantern."

"Cottie, you mustn't!"

"I used to see you sit across from him at the table, and when he yelled
at you or wanted to pet you I've seen you run your finger-nails into you
palms from hatin' him, clear in till they bled, like you used to do
when you was a kid and hated any one, and now, just because he's dead--"

"Oh, Gawd, I never done the right thing by him! He was my husband. Look
how bare I kept everything from him. He used to come home from a
forty-eight-hour shift and say this house reminded him of hell with the
fire gone out. I never did the right thing by him."

"He didn't by you, neither."

"He was my husband."

"He knew if we'd 'a' had the money to light out and do like Lily he
wouldn't 'a' stood a show of bein' your husband, though. He knew, from
the day they put the bandages on maw's eyes, thet he was just the only
way out for us. He knew one of us had to quit the factory and stay home
with her--and where was the money comin' from? He knew."

"Yes, he knew, Cottie. Even on the New York accommodation, that time on
the wedding-trip, trouble began right off. When that fellow on the train
got talkin' to me and told me he could give me a job in the biggest show
on Broadway, he nearly hauled off and raised a row right there on the
train when he came back and seen me talkin' to him."

"If only you'd got the fellow's name, Della, and his street in New
York!"

"How could I, when John ca