mb creature, and not until
two years after the close of the war did the poor fellow drift home
again, as one from the dead--all uncertain of the past and unfitted for
the future.

And his sweetheart drank her cup alone. The old settlers say that she
never flinched nor shrank, but for years, even after her marriage to the
Judge, the young woman kept a little grave covered with flowers, that
bore the simple words: "Martha, aged five months and three days." They
say that she did not lose her courage and that she bent her head for no
one. But the war brought her neighbours so many sorrows that Martha's
trouble was forgotten, the years passed and only the old people of the
community know about the little grave beside the Judge's and their
little boy's. Jimmy Purdy grew into a smooth-faced, unwrinkled, rather
blank-eyed old man, clerking in the bookstore for a time, serving as
City Clerk for twenty years, and later living at the Palace Hotel on his
pension. He worshipped Aunt Martha's children and her children's
children, but he never saw her except when they met in some casual way.
She was married when he came back from the war, and if he ever knew her
agony he never spoke of it. Whenever he talked of the events before the
war, his face wore a troubled, baffled look, and he did not seem to
remember things clearly. He was a simple old man with a boyish face and
heart who was confused by the world growing old around him.

One day they found him dead in his bed. And Miss Larrabee hurried out to
Aunt Martha's to get the facts about his life for the paper. It was a
bright October morning as she went up the walk to the old brick house,
and she heard someone playing on the piano, rolling the chords after the
grandiose manner of pianists fifty years ago. A voice seemed to be
singing an old ballad. As the girl mounted the steps the voice came more
distinctly to her. It was quavering and unsure, but with a moan of
passion the words came forth:

"As I lay my heart on your dead heart,--Douglas, Douglas, Douglas,
tender and true----"

Suddenly the voice choked in a groan. As she stood by the open door Miss
Larrabee could see in the darkened room the figure of an old woman
racked with sobs on a great mahogany sofa, and on the floor beside her
lay a daguerreotype, glinting its gilt and glass through the gloom.

The girl tiptoed across the porch, down the steps through the garden and
out of the gate.

IX

Our Loathe