back. Then it was mislaid, when I wanted to wear it
again. Then spring came.... When I got back from the sea I thought I saw
Joy. I thought she ran, and that I ran after her. Then that she turned
and caught me as I fell.... I was wearing this coat. I haven't worn it
since."

With fingers that shook he unwound from the top button of the coat a
long, entangled hair, the color of old Domingo mahogany, which is either
more brown than red, or more red than brown. Nobody can swear which.

When Martha came to see how the Poor Boy was getting on with his
packing she was amused to find that he had tired of it. That his things
were all in a mess, nothing packed or protected from moths, and that he
himself was standing at a window looking out into the dark torrents of
rain. At his feet was an old mackinaw. Martha picked it up and folded
it.

"Shall I _resoom_ where you've left off?" she asked.

"Please! But be careful of that coat."

She began to bring order swiftly out of chaos.

"Martha!"

"Don't be stopping me now."

"What would you do if you knew that something that couldn't possibly be
true absolutely was true?"

"For that," said Martha bluntly, "I'd take two tablespoonfuls of
castor-oil."

"It is true," said the Poor Boy, "and it can't be."

He passed one hand in front of his face as if brushing a cobweb or--a
hair.

"A hot-water bag at the feet," Martha continued impetuously, "and
another on the pit of the stomick is a favored remedy with some."

"Martha...."

"What else?"

"Has your helper got reddish-brownish, brownish-reddish hair--the color
of the sideboards in the dining-room?"

"Well," said Martha, "she has and she hasn't. The first of every month
'tis that color or thereabouts; but be the twenty-ninth or thirtieth
'tis back to a good workin' gray."

"The day I got back from the sea," said the Poor Boy to himself, "was
about the twenty-ninth or the thirtieth. But still if I'm going to
believe what can't be true--I say, Martha, lend me a saucer of alcohol,
will you?"

Old Martha bustled off and returned with what he required. The Poor Boy
carried his chemical into the book-room and closed the door firmly, and
much to Martha's disappointment, she being anxious to know what was
toward in her darling's mind.

The Poor Boy placed the saucer of alcohol in the light, and dropped into
it the mahogany-colored hair; nothing happened. The hair itself
appeared brighter perhaps, but the crystal liquid w