wrought he was, yet turned to obey. Fair, to aid her,
snatched away the pillows. A small thing from under them fluttered out
upon the carpet and lay before the three. With a despairing murmur the
invalid picked it up, and the two men stood facing each other. Fair
colored slightly, March slowly crimsoned. Then Fair smiled. March smiled
too, but foolishly. Johanna made herself very busy with the bed, but she
saw all. Fair pushed forward a rocking-chair, into which March sank.
Then with gentle insistence he drew from March's hand the worn
photograph--for such it was--leaned against a window and gazed on it,
while March turned his brow into the cushioned back of his chair and
wept as comfortably as any girl.

Johanna took out the tray and its wreck, and in a moment was back with
fresh sheets. March had lain down on the bare mattress and, with his
cheek on a pillow, was smiling in mild amusement at Fair's account of a
brief talk he had had with Leggett while the train waited at Pulaski
City.

"Yes," said March, moving enough to let the bed be made, "he pretends to
keep a restaurant there now; but where he gets all the money he spends
is more than I can make out, unless it's from men who can't afford to
let him tell what he knows."

A servant of the house tapped at the door and said Major Garnet was in
the office, waiting for Johanna. March rose to his elbow and gave her a
hand.

"Why, I shan't ever know how to be sick without you any mo'!" he said,
as her dark fingers slipped timidly from his friendly hold.
"Johanna!--now--now, don't you go tellin' things you'd oughtn't to; will
you?"

"No, seh," came from the maid slowly, yet with a suspicious readiness
quite out of keeping with the limp diffidence of her attitude.

"Hold on a moment, Johanna," he called, as she turned to go. "Just wait
an instant--sounds like----" He rose higher. Fair stepped to the west
window. Loud words were coming from the sidewalk under it. March started
eagerly. "That's Proudfit's----" Before he could finish the bang of a
pistol rang, evidently in the office door, another, farther within,
roared up through the house, and a third and fourth re-echoed it amid
the wailings of Johanna as she flew down the stairs crying:

"Mahs John Wesley! O Lawdy, Lawdy! Mahs John Wesley! Mahs John Wesley!"

At the same instant came Tom Hersey's voice, remote, but clear:

"Stop! Great God! Stop! Don't you see he's dying?"

Fair was already on the staircase a