TO YOU, DAD

AUTHOR'S NOTE

In my great-grandmother's house in Indiana, shortly after the close of the Civil War, a series of extraordinary events transpired which were never satisfactorily explained. The house was renowned for its hospitality and witnesses were not lacking to testify to the strange disturbances which in timehave tobecame a legend.

Those disturbances are recorded in this novel as the subjective experience of one of the characters, and to that extent the work is founded on fact; but the story is fictitious and the people in no sense represent real persons living or dead.

THE DARK FANTASTIC

... the name of truth,

Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show?"

CHAPTER 1

Candles were still used to light one to bed; kerosene lamps still exploded. Stagecoaches made six miles an hour, and one traveled by rail at the risk of one's neck. Gentlemen wore greatcoats instead of overcoats, and male quartets sang "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." Hoops were going out, bustles were not yet in, but ladies achieved quite as telling effect with tight lacing and lasers of petticoats. The war referred to in conversation was not World War II,

Conversation, however, held a not unfamiliar ring. Returned veterans complained that civilians had all the jobs. The older generation complained that the younger generation was going to the devil. The younger generation retorted that they had inherited a world which their elders had treated like H. Dumpty's egg and now expected them to put together again. Barring a few of Mr. Edison's inventions and the fact that the Republican party was in power, times were not so very different then from now.

There was the usual post war wave of spiritualism; the usual postwar depression. Eggs were selling at ten cents a dozen; butter at eight and a third cents a pound. Quack medicine, paper money, and Grant campaign buttons flooded the country. And Edwin Booth was making his first midland tour since the tragedy of Ford's Theatre in Washington.

It was the decade following the Civil War.

On a certain evening in November, Miss Judith Amory stood before her mirror in an Indiana boardinghouse and dressed to go to the theater. Her chin was tilted at a belligerent angle and for good reason. She was going alone. Without male escort, without even a female companion, she was going to an evening performance of Macbeth. It would have been a daring thing to do even in her home city of Chicago. In provincial Terre Haute it was unheard of. Sheltered young ladies who had no one to take them to the theater remained at home and embroidered chaste mottoes on sofa pillows or played sentimental ballads on the piano. But Miss Judith Amory was not a sheltered young lady. She was an extremely competent young woman who had been taking care of herself for more years than she cared to admit and was perfectly capable of going anywhere alone. Besides, she had never seen Cushman and Booth together.

Any one of the widows or spinsters in Mrs. Prewitt's Genteel Boarding Establishment for Ladies would have been pleased to accompany Miss Amory as her guest. But none of therp would have considered the excursion worth the price of a theater ticket. By the same token, neither did Judith consider their company worth the price. Autumn was well advanced and she had not yet secured a position for the winter. It was really the height of extravagance for an unemployed teacher of English literature to squander two dollars on a balcony seat.

But that only lent zest to the indulgence.

She dressed with care, prolonging the pleasures of anticipation. First the cotton chemise, then the corsets laced to exactly nineteen inches, then the short muslin petticoat, then the long plain petticoat, then the full ruffled petticoat, then the ruffled petticoat with tucks and embroidery, then the petticoat with lace-edged ruffles, and finally the sheer cambric petticoat flounced to the waist with ruffles on each flounce. Last of all the full gathered skirt of blue poplin with the tight buttoned bodice and the black velvet ribbon at the waist. There was also a black velvet ribbon around her bare white throat. Velvet neck ribbons were the fashion, and Judith was fortunate. On her long slender neck they were becoming.

She looked very well when dressed. She had a slim graceful figure and a thin eager face to which excitement lent a glow which gave an illusion of beauty. Yet she was not beautiful. Her eyes were too close together, her nose too long, her mouth too wide. But sparkling animation, a provocative manner, and a low pleasing voice made her attractive, particularly to the opposite sex. Given wealth and family background, she might have made a very good marriage. But without a tie in the world, without a dollar she had not earned, she had small chance of even meeting an eligible man, much less marrying one. She faced this fact and accepted it. Since she could not bring herself to marry any of the men whom it was possible to meet and could not manage to meet any of the men she would choose to marry, this charming young woman was, at the age of twenty-five, still Miss Judith Amory.

Mrs. Prewitt's ladies were in the back parlor when Judith came downstairs. The opening strains of "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls" warned that someone was at the piano and about to burst into song. At sight of Judith in jacket and toque and carrying her small velvet muff, the music stopped and the ladies turned with flattering interest to the stairs.

"Miss Judith! You are going out?"

"I'm going to the theater."

"The theater!" This from the widow of a Methodist bishop.

"I'm going to see Macbeth."

"Oh." A sigh of doubtful relief granted partial absolution. After all, Shakespeare was sometimes mistaken for the Bible.

Mrs. Prewitt, a motherly Mrs. Grundy, smiled on Judith and brought another lamp.

"I'll put a light for you in the front parlor, my dear. You won't want me bringing your gentleman friend back here."

Judith braced herself. "I'm not expecting a gentleman, Mrs. Prewitt. I'm going alone." And then, with the sound of a concerted gasp behind her and the vision of Mrs. Prewitt's plump face settling like a shocked cheese, she went swiftly out the street door before the word "Alone!" could explode behind her.

"Well!" said the bishop's widow. "That's what comes of being born and brought up in Chicago."

According to Terre Haute standards, Chicago was what had risen from the ashes when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Judith, meantime, had caught the horse trolley on the next street and was rolling away to town without being in any way molested.

"It's ridiculous," she fumed inwardly, "for women to be unable to go where they please by themselves. Someday they will. Someday women will do everything men do and nothing will be thought of it. But it will probably take another war to do it. Women are greater slaves than the Negroes ever were."

But she could not let her irritation annoy her now. She possessed one of those fortunate dispositions (fortunate to the owner, at least) which enables one to concentrate on his immediate purpose to the exclusion of all else. Her immediate purpose was to enjoy her evening's excursion. No annoyance was sufficient to distract her interest.

The horsecar dropped her two blocks from the theater. She hurried briskly through the November darkness. City streets at night did not alarm her. Descending from Chicago cabs and trolleys with her father was among her earliest recollections. She thrilled to lighted street lamps and busy pavements. But advance notices had warned that the performance started punctually at eight o'clock. She did not want to miss the thrill of that first curtain.

The theater lobby milled with the cream of Midwest society. Calmly, determinedly, Judith pushed her way through bouffant petticoats and satin-lined opera capes, her head high, her assurance so impeccable that people making way for her failed to notice that no escort hovered at her elbow. But when she had gained the sanctuary of the dimly lit theater it took all her savoir-faire to present her ticket to the brisk young usher and murmur in reply to his astonished eyebrows, "There is no one with me."

She had chosen her balcony seat for two reasons. It was cheaper; also, it rendered her solitary state less conspicuous. But as she felt the eyes following her lone progress down the shallow steps to first-row center, second seat from the aisle, she wished for a moment that she had not been at such pains to get the best possible reservation. She would have been less noticeable farther back.

But seated, and sufficiently rallied to look down on the proscenium directly opposite and only a little below her, she congratulated herself that she had one of the choice seats in the house and she didn't give a continental how many people were looking at her.

The aisle seat on her right was vacant. On her left a family-party composed of father, mother, and two half-grown daughters gave her a half-guilty feeling of protection. For all her brave insouciance, she was keenly conscious of being alone. When the mother in the family changed places with her husband, thus taking the seat next Judith, that independent young woman was shamelessly relieved. She even smiled at the woman, making some small remark, in the hope that people behind her might take her for a late-arriving member of the party. She began to speculate on the chance of the aisle seat remaining unoccupied.

The house filled rapidly. A trap door in the orchestra pit yawned and disgorged musicians and instruments. In a

short while the house hghts would dim. Meantime, there was the fascinating distraction of the program.

PRESENTING

MR. EDWIN BOOTH &

MISS CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

IN

MACBETH

A Play

by

William Shakespeare

She had no need to read the cast. The supporting players were unfamiliar, unimportant, many of them recruited locally. Booth was notorious for his carelessness in minor casting. But who cared? What difference did it make who read the lines of ghosts and porters when Cushman and Booth read the immortal dialogues.

Act I, Scene I An Open Place.

It was not a theater with a drop curtain and an orchestra tuning its instruments. It was a caldron where witches brewed enchantment.

This moment of expectancy. This moment of burning cheeks and icy hands, while music played and chattering voices gradually hushed and lamps dimmed slowly to dusk before the glowing footlights of a stage. This moment before the rising of the curtain was worth all the adventure had cost her.

A large and substantial presence sank into the seat on the aisle and made quite a commotion shedding a bulky coat. She neither saw nor felt the intrusion. She was conscious of nothing but Act I, Scene I—An Open Place.

Not till the lights came up at the end of the act did she move. Through the scene changes she sat tense, leaning slightly forward, oblivious of her surroundings. When the

filial words came in the great tragedian's matchless voice, " 'False face must hide what the false heart doth know, " and the curtain slowly descended, she roused like a sleeper from a drugged slumber and sat limply back in her seat.

It was then that she became aware of her new neighbor.

He, too, was relaxing as though from the grip of tension. Remembering just in time that she was a lady, she did not look at him but assiduously studied her program. The family on her left were having open discussion on the merits of the production. The youngest daughter, in pigtails and hair bows, was disappointed in the Witches. They had not been gruesome enough.

The man on Judith's right was having trouble with his greatcoat. There was no place to put it that was not in someone's way. He murmured apologies which Judith quite properly ignored. He was a tall man, and his long legs took up more than his share of room without a heavy cloak piled on his knees. She wondered why he didn't check it.

And then the lights began dimming again and she forgot the man and his troublesome coat.

At the next intermission a number of people went down to the lobby to stretch their legs. The family on her left departed. Judith was left in her seat beside the stranger.

Why didn't he go out too? It was the gentlemen mostly who were leaving.

But instead he arranged his coat over the back of his seat and settled himself to study his program. Judith likevidse kept her eyes glued to the folder which she now knew by heart. But every nerve was tingling. The women beside her had left the balcony, the women behind her were waiting for their escorts; but, worst of all, the man beside her knew that she was unattended. If she had had presence of mind she would have followed the family party out and no one would have been the wiser.

And then her modern scorn for conventions reasserted

itself. Rules of conduct were for timid people, not for Miss Judith Amory. Defiantly she turned her head—and found herself looking straight into the eyes of the man beside her. Whether he had been watching her, or wheTher their eyes met by accident, they both looked swiftly away.

But she was no longer uneasy, nor even embarrassed. The man whose eyes she had just encountered would never annoy a woman.

She began to steal surreptitious glances at him from under lowered lids, at first lifting her eyes no higher than his hands. Long, well-shaped hands, but with nails pared close and skin redly clean as from much scrubbing. The sleeves of his coat were worn at the wTist, as though the fabric were not new, yet it was a broadcloth sleeve and the wristband beneath it was linen. Judith's eyes moved upward and caught the gleam of a heavy gold chain across a broad expanse of smoke-gray vest and the flowing ends of a carelessly knotted silk tie. His dress was that of a gentleman, yet his hands did not look like her father's. She wondered who and what he might be.

Then her eyes moved higher and she forgot about his hands.

His head, she decided, should have belonged on George Rogers Clark. It was beautifully molded, covered with thick, curling brown hair, and he carried it like a man accustomed to looking over the heads of lesser men. His face was bronzed as though from long exposure to sun and wind, and the blue of his eyes was in such startling contrast that they seemed to smolder with blue flames. This was no man about town. This was no townsman at all. Hands, face, physique set him apart from the pallid city folk who filled the theater.

He turned his head and found her watching him. If he had been an urbanite she would have frozen and looked right through him. But because she was sure he was a country man she was no more disconcerted than if she had been caught admiring a fine horse in a pasture.

She smiled a little, and he responded with the eagerness of a lonely stranger.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" he was referring, naturally, to the performance of Macbeth.

She nodded. "My little friend didn't care for the Witches."

It wasn't exactly a falsehood, but it implied a connection with the family party.

"Now that's strange," he said. "Children as a rule are quite taken with the Witches."

"I'm afraid she takes her supernatural too literally. In Shakespeare it's always subjective." Judith thought, "There I go, talking as though I were in a classroom."

He was taking vigorous issue with her. "Do you really think the Weird Sisters were a figment of Macbeth's imagination?"

She quoted: " 'Spirits that tend on mortal thoughts . . .' what are the Witches except the incarnate evil that is already in Macbeth? If he had not already thought of removing Duncan from the throne he would never have met three witches who would foretell his doing it."

"Then you think his crime was motivated purely from within?"

"Assuredly."

"That makes him a monster."

"How do you see him?"

"As a tragic study of fiend-inspired criminality. I think he was inherently a heroic character, impelled toward crime by a demoniacal power."

"You wouldn't be alluding to his wife?"

But Judith could not distract him with humor. He was very earnest in his conception of the play. Any other interpretation, he maintained, made Macbeth a mere ruffian, a sort of medieval Bill Sikes.

Judith thought, "He knows his Shakespeare," and wondered more than ever who he was.

''Mr. Booth seems to have the same idea of the part," she said. ''Have you ever seen his Hamlet?"

"No." He spoke regretfully. "I saw his Othello once in Indianapolis and his Lear. I preferred McCullough's Lear. But Booth's Hamlet is something I've yet to enjoy."

"You're quite a lover of Shakespeare, aren't you?"

"Isn't everyone who comes to a Shakespeare play?" he asked naively.

"Goodness no. Those people down there"—she indicated the fashionable crowd in the orchestra rows and boxes—"came to show off their clothes. And the people up here came for any number of reasons; principally to see the brother of the man who killed Lincoln. It's the people in the gallery who really came to see Shakespeare."

The aphorism was not original. She was quoting her father, who in turn had quoted Mr. Wilham Winter.

"Then I should be sitting in the gallery. So should you."

"I beg your pardon?" The conversation was beginning to get slightly out of hand.

"When a young lady comes alone to see Macbeth it must be from love of Shakespeare."

Both tone and manner were respectful, but the blue eyes held a twinkle that made Judith blush furiously and fix her own with marked attention on the curtain. She had learned her lesson. This was what came of talking to strange men.

But when the third-act curtain had descended they turned to each other spontaneously, like companions of long standing impatient to resume an argument.

"Did you notice?" demanded Judith triumphantly.

"The ghost of Banquo did not appear."

"Only the empty chair."

"Yet the way Booth gazed upon that empty chair made the ghost more real than if it had been visible."

"Henry Irving uses a visible ghost all daubed with phosphorus, it's very bad. Because the whole idea is subjective. Like the Witches."

But he refused to go with her that far. '"The ghost is subjective," he admitted. "The ghost is Macbeth's conscience. But the Witches are preternatural, occult power which impels him against his better nature. Macbeth is the embodied conflict between good and evil. That's what makes it poetic tragedy. Otherwise it's just a murder story."

"Where did you study Shakespeare?" asked Judith respectfully.

"At Asbury College," he replied.

When the curtain fell for the fourth time he remarked, exactly as though she would know to whom he was referring, "I must try and remember every detail. So I can tell the children."

She had a sensation of being suddenly dropped from an elevation.

"Children?"

He nodded, smiling, and glanced at the two little girls in pigtails.

"Next time I shall bring all three of them with me."

Suddenly, illogically, Judith's evening went flat. How silly she had been to fall into conversation with a stranger.

"Doesn't your wife care for Shakespeare?"

He had not mentioned bringing his wife to see a play; only his children. Maybe he was a widower.

There was a noticeable silence. She glanced at him and was startled at the change which had come over his face. It was as though a mask had dropped over his features, conforming to their outline but extinguishing their light.

He said, "My wife is an invalid."

Suddenly Judith felt impelled to explain herself to this stranger; to make it clear to him that she was a teacher ot literature who attended Shakespearean performances solely for educational purposes and that she had no interest in life outside her work. She drew a self-portrait of intelligent female independence that would have disarmed any man. It disarmed

the man who had spoken with such warmth of his children and over whose countenance a mask had dropped when he mentioned his wife.

"I should never have taken you for a schoolteacher." He looked at Judith with interest. "Where have you taught?"

She mentioned the day school for young ladies in Chicago where she had taught before coming to Indiana.

"I thought it must be something like that. You're not big enough to handle boys. I'm looking right now for a man who can whip the Pettigrew kids."

"You're looking for " Judith's surprise was genuine.

"I'm a township trustee," he explained. "The teacher in our district met wth a serious accident. He'll be out for the rest of the winter."

Judith drew a long breath. "Where is vour school?" she inquired casually.

"About twenty-five miles from here."

"On a railroad?"

"On the Logansport line. Not far from Woodridge."

"I see. To whom would one apply for the school?"

"You know of a man?"

"I-might."

"Tell him to see Richard Tomlinson, Timberley farm. Anyone in Woodridge can direct him to Timberley."

He whispered the last words hurriedly, for the lights were dimming. But Judith's mind made careful memorandum.

She slept late the morning after Macbeth. There was no need for early rising. She had no classes to meet.

"We don't feel. Miss Amory, that you are quite the person needed here at Oaklawn. Or perhaps we should say, a female seminary is not the place for some of your ideas."

"If you're referring to my statement in class that English divorce laws were responsible for George Eliot's "

"Please, Miss Amory! You have been told repeatedly that neither the books nor the life of George Ehot are fit matters for discussion with young female pupils. You have willfully ignored the express ruling of your superiors. Your services will not be required further."

Which explains why Judith was able to sleep late the morning after Macbeth.

There was nothing to be gained by going down to breakfast and facing a roomful of disapproving widows and curious spinsters who had learned by this time that she had not come in till nearly midnight. For that matter, there was nothing to be gained by facing Mrs. Prewitt and being reminded that she was in arrears with her board. It was pleasanter to lie in bed and relive last night's enjoyment.

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch. With his surcease, success . . .

What an unforgettable voice Booth had! what agony of soul could be borne on a single cadence. How manifest had been the haunted condition of Macbeth's mind. He had indeed seemed driven by some external power of evil.

"But I still don't believe he actually met the Witches."

Of the Lady Macbeth of Charlotte Cushman she was inclined to be critical. True, the great actress had been superb in her embodiment of a character almost savage. But she had been too masculine, too lacking in the feminine charm by which woman captivates and dominates her man. There had been too much magnificent elocution; too little soft subtlety.

"She never could have handled Macbeth that way. He never would have stood for browbeating. She should have been wily, clever—ruthless, yes—but it all should have been more mental. If I had her voice I could have done a better job."

She lay for a while toying with the picture of herself coming down a stairway in a white robe, a flickering taper in her hand. She watched herself set the candle down and rub her hands, one over the other, as though washing them.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

Under the bedclothes her hands were dripping wet. She turned on her side, laughing all by herself at her own histrionics.

"I should have been an actress. That's the best possible life for a woman with no money and no chance of a good marriage. At least it's better than teaching horrid little girls who 'yes' you to your face and make mouths behind your back. Smirky little hypocrites! I hate girls—all girls—big, little, old, and young."

She buried her face in the trough between the hard board-inghouse pillows and shed a few tears for poor Judith Amory who had been so shabbily treated by the lady principal of Oaklawn Female Seminary. Then suddenly she flopped on her back, eyes dry as shale on which rain leaves no trace. Her thoughts had leaped to the point toward which they had been veering from the moment of awaking, the man who sat beside her the night before.

His name was Richard Tomlinson and he lived near Woodridge. He was a farmer, but well to do; note the gold watch chain, the linen wristbands, the broadcloth coat. He had been to college; he spoke with the cultured accent of the educated man. He was to township trustee for a school that was without a teacher. He had three children and an invalid wife.

Here Judith's racing thoughts stopped as at a sudden hurdle.

What a damnable irony was that invalid wife!

For the first time in her life she had met a man whom, had there been no obstacle, she would have chosen to marry. And, she confidently believed, might have accomplished her purpose. She recalled their shared enjoyment of the night before. It had been like a mutual discovery.

Had his wife disapproved of his going to the theater? Or had he deceived her about the purpose of his trip to the city? He did not look like a man who would bother to deceive. Besides, he had said he must remember the play so that he could tell the children about it. She remembered the set of his mouth when he said that. As though he might have defied someone's displeasure in coming and would further defy it by talking about a forbidden subject on his return. He was probably stubborn as a mule, in a good-natured sort of way.

Of course she was imagining his whole background. All that she knew for a fact was that his wife was an invalid. All that she knew which in any way concerned Miss Judith Amory was that he was trustee for a school that was without a teacher.

He had stated that male teachers only need apply.

But Judith guessed, with sly intuition, that if an attractive young woman appeared in the neighborhood of Woodridge inquiring for Mr. Richard Tomlinson he would be at a loss to explain where and how he had made her acquaintance except on the grounds of school business.

She smiled to herself and stretched luxuriously, like a cat who knows of a promising mousehole.

CHAPTER 2

Woodridge, the county seat of Woods County, was a flourishing town of some three thousand souls. Situated not only on a railroad but on the equally prized hard-surfaced turnpike, it was the cultural center of one of the richest farming districts in the state.

Four churches reared their spires within a stone's throw of the square—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Catholic—and a small society of Quakers met in the Odd Fellows' hall over the Farmers and Merchants Bank, But the institution which gave the little town its prestige was the academy.

Housed in a one-room frame building, its faculty consisting of one professor, there was nothing about the Woodridge Academy (outwardly) to justify the pride it evoked in the breasts of the citizenry. But whereas a pupil in the district school could go no further than McGuffey's reader and Milne's complete arithmetic, from the academy he could enter college with full credits. The teacher of the academy was, of necessity, a man of many talents.

The present incumbent, John Barclay by name, was such a man. He taught in winter and farmed in summer, and rumor had it that he could have been a professional musician had he desired. Certain it was, he had given up the violin—as some men give up liquor—upon joining the church, and subscribed (outwardly, at least) to the local opinion that the instrument was a tool of the devil. He refrained from playing it openly; but many a loiterer, passing the academy late at night, could testify that the schoolmaster indulged his vice in secret.

Those same loiterers, when they lingered to listen, sometimes encountered the big blacksmith, Doc Baird, heading in that direction; and sometimes when the station hack pulled up they would see dapper Lucius Goflf, who worked on a Terre Haute paper, leap out and swing jauntily through the gate; and sometimes they would find tall, handsome Richard Tomlinson tying his black horse to the hitching rail. When this happened they would know that the four greatest friends in the county had gathered to spend an evening together.

There was much talk about the oddly assorted friendship of these four. It was rumored that all sorts of unorthodox subjects were discussed among them: mesmerism, some queer new cult called telepathy, and—most devilish of all—spiritual-ism. It was claimed on good authority (Lawyer Otis Huse, no less) that Doc Baird and Lucius Goff indulged in table tipping. But then Otis Huse was known to have no love for the Tomlinsons and was ready to cast suspicion on anything with which Richard was connected.

But there were other people to testify that Doc Baird possessed magnetic power of some kind. He had been known to cure headaches, pains in legs and backs, and various nervous ailments by the simple laying on of hands. Jed Weatherell, an epileptic, asserted that when he felt a fit coming on Doc Baird could put it back, if he could get to him in time.

Old Dr. Caxton, a bona fide physician known far and wide as Rockgut Caxton, snorted derisively at such gullibility and denounced the blacksmith as a quack. But as the smith accepted no fees and solicited no patients—he was kept busy six days a week at his trade—he could hardly be accused of charlatanism.

Yet there was some point to the skeptics' demand that if Doc Baird possessed the skill with which he was credited why had he never been able to cure Richard Tomlinson's wife? Surely, if he had any power at all, he would have used it for his friend.

One evening, about a week after Richard Tomlinson's trip to the city, John Barclay sat before the hard-coal burner in his schoolroom and waited for his friends to gather. He thought, as he cuddled his violin, how good was male companionship—not that he didn't love his wife and family of daughters, but—how satisfying was the good hearty man talk that presently would fly back and forth across this glowing stove. What would they be arguing about tonight? Lucius would have the latest news. It was he who usually set the evening's discussion. Last time he had been full of this green-backer talk.

"It's the only thing that will prevent a panic. There's no currency in the country. How long has it been since you've

seen a silver piece, John Barclay? Or you. Doc; how are you paid these days? In produce, I'll be bound. This whole community's living by a system of barter. Isn't that a fact, Richard?"

"We haven't seen any silver at Timberley since the war."

They had had a rousing discussion that night over the green-backers.

What Lucius would have on the griddle tonight there was no telling. But you could count on its being fresh and full of interest. Lucius was the spice of the quartet, just as Doc was the leaven and Barclay himself the flavor. It was Richard who was the substance.

"If his wife does die," thought the schoolmaster, "I hope he never marries again. After all he's been through he deserves a rest."

A heavy step on the wooden porch made him lay aside his fiddle. That would be Doc Baird, usually first to arrive. He was unmarried and had no womenfolk to cajole into good humor before leaving the house. He lived in a two-room cottage back of his shop and "did for himself." Many a harassed family man envied the big blacksmith.

He came in now, with step surprisingly light for so huge a frame, and said as he took the schoolmaster's stoutest chair, "Richard won't be in tonight. His wife's worse."

John Barclay nodded, as though this was to be expected following Richard's trip to the city.

"Been out there, Doc?"

"No. Richard was in town today. The black horse cast a shoe. He asked me to tell you. He didn't like to call you out of school."

The schoolmaster rose and got a jar of tobacco from a cupboard where also reposed a box of chalk and a couple of blackboard erasers. He set the tobacco jar in the center of a small table, and both men filled their pipes.

"She's heading for another spell," said Barclay dryly.

Doc nodded. "I look for it to break tonight."

"Do you suppose you could do anything for her, Doc?"

"I don't know. I've never had a chance to try."

"Richard won't let you?"

''She won't let me. Goes in her room and slams the door when Richard takes me out there."

"You needn't take it personally. She orders Dr. Caxton out of the house too."

"It's nothing to me. It just embarrasses Richard."

"Yes, it would." The schoolmaster sighed. Then to his own surprise he heard himself saying for the second time, and aloud: ,

"If she ever does die, I hope Richard has sense enough not to marry again."

The blacksmith shook his head. "Not a chance."

"He doesn't need a wife," persisted Barclay. "His mother runs the house and she's certainly raising his children."

"A man needs a woman," said Doc solemnly.

"You're a great one to talk."

"I don't mean me—or you—or even our friend Lucius. I mean Richard. He's only twenty-five. If Abigail dies he'll marry in six months, mark my words."

"I don't believe it. He's had enough. I can tell. Besides, there'd be the same thing to go through again."

"You mean the little girl?"

John Barclay nodded. The blacksmith cleared his throat.

"I still say Richard'll never stay single. The women won't let him. Man alive, he'll be the best catch this side of Indianapolis."

"If he's ever a widower," said the schoolmaster dryly. They had both been talking as though Abigail Tomlinson's death were an assured fact.

The train was late that evening, as usual. Due at six-fifteen, it was after seven when the brisk tattoo of a light walking  stick announced Lucius Goff. Lucius had become quite a dandy since going to work on the Terre Haute paper and he always carried a malacca cane. As he came in now, his cloak draped over his shoulders, his hat rakishly tilted, he gave the impression of a devil-may-care fellow who didn't give a damn what people thought. Which was exactly the impression he intended to give.

He was pricking with excitement for some reason. He looked about the room, his nostrils quivering like an expectant whippet's, and demanded, "Where's Richard?"

"He's not coming," said John Barclay. "His wife's sick." Then, thinking to himself, "Lucius has news," he added, "Take off your coat and sit down. We're here, if Richard's not."

But Lucius stepped to the window and peered up the quiet little street. It was dark, except where street lights glimmered, and the square was practically deserted. There was no light visible in any window except the drugstore, before which the station hack had halted. Tom Stickney, the druggist, stood in his door as if watching to see whether the passenger alighting from the hack was coming in.

The passenger was.

Lucius, from the window of the academy, could see straight into the lighted drugstore. He stood motionless, watching.

Doc Baird and the schoolmaster exchanged glances. Then John Barclay stepped behind Lucius and looked over his shoulder. Through the lighted drugstore window could be seen the trim silhouette of a modish young woman. She was talking to Tom Stickney.

Barclay said, "Humph!"

Doc, who without moving was looking over the heads of the other two men, said, "Who is she?"

Lucius spoke without turning his head. "I don't know. She was on the train as I came out. From Terre Haute. We rode up from the station together. I tried to speak to her—and got the icy stare." He grinned. "Then—after putting me in my place—she calmly asked the hack driver how she could get in touch with Richard Tomlinson."

The consternation of his listeners was like applause to the drama-loving reporter.

"Tomlinson! A woman from Terre Haute asking for Richard?" said Doc Baird.

"I don't believe it," said Barclay flatly. Then, to appease the black flash of Lucius's eyes, "You misunderstood, surely. Richard knows no one in Terre Haute. No women, I mean."

"How do you know?" retorted Lucius. "He went up there about a week ago, didn't he?"

"On business."

Lucius laughed, not in malice, but in sheer appreciation of his news. "I'll tell you what his business was. He went to see Macbeth. I know because I covered the play and I saw Richard in the first row of the balcony. Furthermore, he wasn't alone. He was in the company of a young lady. And if I'm not mistaken that same young lady is talking to Tom Stickney at this moment."

Three pairs of eyes focused on the drugstore window. No one spoke for seconds. Something was happening that boded no good for their friend.

Then the schoolmaster said, "This thing can be explained. Richard Tomlinson is a good man."

"Too damned good," snapped Lucius. "Ye gods, after all he's put up with, he's certainly entitled to "

Doc Baird spoke. "She mustn't be allowed to go out there. Abigail's in a bad way."

John Barclay sucked a swift breath. "Surely she wouldn't try--"

"Stickney seems to be giving her some sort of directions. Sec—he's pointing her down the street."

Lucius muttered excitedly, "By Jove, she's coming this wav." They watched, the three of them, as the trim figure stepped off the porch of the drugstore, lifted her skirts daintily, and crossed the street. They held their concerted breaths as she came briskly down the boardwalk to the academy. And then as they saw her set down a small traveling bag to unlatch the gate they backed away from the window like three bewildered hounds who had caught a cross scent and didn't know what to do with it.

Doc whispered, "She's coming here!" and looked at Lucius, who, for reasons of his own, became suddenly self-effacing. Giving the nod to the schoolmaster, he retired behind the stove while Barclay went to the door.

A pleasing feminine voice said, "Good evening. Is Mr. Richard Tomlinson here?"

The three men had never seen anyone quite like the young person who stepped across the threshold in response to the schoolmaster's invitation. Poised and self-assured; smartly, though somewhat shabbily attired; not a man among them— not even the urban reporter—could have told offhand whether or not she was a lady.

She looked about the square low-ceilinged room with its double row of unvarnished desks. She had never been in such a schoolroom before. If its crudity dismayed her, she gave no sign. She merely repeated the object of her visit.

"I was told that I might find Mr. Tomlinson here."

She addressed herself to the schoolmaster, but her glance included the blacksmith and the individual behind the stove. She recognized Lucius as the man who had tried to talk to her in the hack. It amused her to find him among those present and absurdly trying to conceal the fact.

"Mr. Tomlinson isn't here this evening," said John Barclay.

"He will be later, I understand."

The druggist had evidently explained to this stranger the custom of the four friends to congregate.

"I'm afraid not. His wife is ill."

"But she's always ill, isn't she? I mean—she's an invalid."

This was indeed ominous. It could not have been Tom Stickney, surely, who had discussed Abigail Tomlinson's health with this stranger.

The schoolmaster and the blacksmith exchanged glances. Lucius, in his corner, grew uncomfortably warm and wished himself elsewhere as the young woman set her bag on one of the desks and moved over to the stove. She ignored him as though he were invisible, stretching her gloved hands to the rosy isinglass windows in perfect composure.

Suddenly she inquired how far it was to Timberley.

John Barclay gasped, "Timberley!"

"That's Mr. Tomlinson's home, isn't it?"

"Y-y-y-yes-but "

"He told me anyone in Woodridge could direct me to his place."

"You mean"—the schoolmaster eyed her keenly—"Richard Tomlinson invited you to his house?"

"Invited is scarcely the word for a business appointment, is it?"

Suddenly the schoolmaster saw a light. But before he could speak the young lady was explaining:

"I met Mr. Tomlinson in Terre Haute—quite by accident— and he mentioned that the Timberley school was without a teacher. He said if I was interested in applying to come to see him. I told him I had never taught rural school and was not sure it would appeal to me. But I had just completed the half term at Oaklawn Seminary and wasn't altogether happy in my associations there. So last week I handed in my resignation and decided to accept Mr. Tomlinson's offer."

Thus, with only a slight variation of the truth, Judith expunged her humiliation at being fired from Oaklawn and put Richard Tomlinson on record as having offered her employment. She sat down in the chair which was now pushed forward for her and drew a deep breath of satisfaction.

The reactions of the three men were characteristic. Doc Baird and the schoolmaster accepted the glib explanation with relief, Lucius Goff with suspicion. That the young woman was telling only part of the truth, he was convinced. Richard had doubtless met her in Terre Haute, but why had he offered her the school? She was not the type of person needed at Timberley. Either Richard had been drunk (which was unlikely) or he had acted under pressure. Remembering his friend's domestic situation, Lucius's mind clutched at the darkest and most interesting possibility. 

No such thought troubled the schoolmaster.

"Well, well, so you are a teacher. Richard never told us that he had engaged anyone for the Timberley school. As a matter of fact, the business is not solely in his hands. The district votes at a school meeting. But they usually take whomever the trustees recommend. So you can probably settle everything when you talk to Mr. Tomlinson tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? I thought I might drive out there this evening. It's early, you know. Not yet eight o'clock."

At the coolness of this proposal there was another uneasy exchange of glances.

"I wouldn't advise going out there tonight," said Doc Baird flatly. "Not with Richard's wife the way she is."

John Barclay explained: "I'm afraid you'd find it an unfortunate time to see Mr. Tomlinson. On your own account, I mean. Better wait till morning. One of Moss Henderson's boys—he has the livery stable—will drive you out."

"But where am I to spend the night? I couldn't go alone to a hotel."

The town's sole hostelry on the north side of the square was distinctly no place for a lady. It had a bar.

A sardonic voice replied, "Were you thinking of spending the night at Timberley?" And Lucius Goff stepped dramatically from behind the stove.

The young woman was not one whit disconcerted.

"Certainly I expected to stay at Timberley. I'm to board there if I take the school."

This was pure bluff and fabrication, but Judith knew that no one present was in a position to call her hand. So she acknowledged with cool bravado the reporter's smile and bow.

"My apologies," he said. "Permit me to introduce myself. Lucius Goff of the Terre Haute Express. I had the pleasure of seeing you on the train. Miss "

It was the moment he had been waiting for. Judith was forced to give her name.

General introductions followed, Lucius taking charge with a savoir-faire designed to show his less sophisticated friends how a man of the world handled these situations.

"Now if I may make a suggestion, Miss Amory. I'm on my way out to my father's place, four miles west on the corduroy road. I keep a rig at Henderson's. If you'll wait here a few minutes I'll be only too pleased to take you out home with me. I'm sure my sister can make you comfortable. Then tomorrow I'll drive you over to Timberlake and you can settle your— ahem!—business with Mr. Tomlinson."

Nothing could have exceeded the courtesy with which the invitation was extended. But that little cough before the word "business" made Judith turn with relief at the first halting word from the schoolmaster.

"There doesn't seem much point in going four miles the other side of town when Timberley's east of here. Our house isn't large—we've no spare room—but if the young lady's not afraid of a folding bed—there's one in the parlor "

The young lady was not at all afraid of folding beds. Before John Barclay could wipe his spectacles, wondering belatedly what his wife would say, his reckless gesture of hospitality was being accepted.

"Thank you so much. Professor Barclay. And you too, Mr. Goff. I'm sure you understand that it will be more convenient for everyone if I stay in Woodridgetonight."

So, without further ado, John Barclay escorted the young woman to his house, which was only a block from the academy. His two friends watched from the window.

Doc Baird said, "Wonder what Ellie Barclay's going to say when that young lady walks in."

Lucius Goff snapped his fingers, disposing of Ellie Barclay.

"Wait till the lady walks into Tomlinson's. That's when all hell will break loose."

CHAPTER 3

Very early in the morning did Judith, the erstwhile sluggard, rise and begin making preparations for her drive to Timberley, Accompanied by one of the Barclay girls, she walked across the square to Henderson's livery stable and engaged an elderly bay mare and a light wheeled buggy for the day.

She considered the advisability of taking Jennie Barclay with her—the twelve-year-old girl was plainly hoping to be invited—but she decided against it. Dropping Jennie off at her own front gate, she thanked her so graciously for her assistance that Jennie glowed with admiration and forgot that her hints had been ignored.

"Tell Thorne hello for me!" she called after the phaeton.

And Judith nodded, without bothering to inquire who Thorne might be.

It was a bright crisp morning, ideal weather for a drive. Indian summer was gone, but winter had not yet mired the road. The gravel was hard and smooth and the old mare's hoofs rang sharp in the bracing air. Trees were naked, except where leaves still fluttered like red-winged birds from the boughs of maples. Dry leaves heaped the fence corners and lay thick and rotting in the furrows between shocks of com. Fields were brown and dotted with fat gold pumpkins and goose-necked squash. Roadside grass and bushes were rimed with last night's frost. In barn lots idle mules and horses huddled together in the chill of morning, and from fattening pens came the squeals of hogs stampeding for their breakfast. It was a morning when it was good to be alive and rolling smoothly toward one's objective.

At the tollgate the fragrance of coffee and fried mush suggested that the gatekeeper's family was still at breakfast, a fact corroborated by the appearance of the man himself with a trickle of molasses on his chin. With true Hoosier sociabihty he commented favorably on the weather and inquired whether the lady wasn't a stranger in these parts.

Judith responded by asking how far it was to Timberley.

''School, farm, or store?"

"I want the Tomlinsons'."

"Then keep right on this road till you pass the covered bridge over Little Raccoon. There's a finger post pointing to the stage stop. You can see the house from there. Sits on top of a knoll. Highest point between Indianapolis and Springfield, Illinois. The stage stops at the foot of the hill."

"And the school?"

"The school ain't on the pike. It's about half a mile south on Little Raccoon. There's a lane leads through the woods to the schoolhouse. And about a mile farther on the pike is the next tollgate and five or six houses and the crossroads store."

Less than a mile beyond the covered bridge Judith came to the thick woods through which ran the lane to the school-house. At this point the long hill which the old mare had been steadily climbing all the way from Woodridge took a perceptible rise so that when she had cleared the woods she saw the pike falling away in front of her and when she looked back it dropped behind her in the same manner. She was at the summit of the road.

But she was not yet at the summit of the land, that point lay off to the south, rising smoothly in one of those strange knolls with which the ancient mound builders had adorned this level territory centuries before. At the foot of the mound timber encircled it like a girdle, and rising clean above the timber stood a large white pillared house.

Anyone viewing the Southern colonial dwelling, with its kitchen of whitewashed logs attached to the main structure by an enclosed passage, would have guessed that the Tomlin-sons came from Virginia. The first Tomlinson in Indiana had been born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, near neighbor to the McCormick who later had invented a machine for reaping grain.

Tall poplars guarded the white gate in front of the stage stop and lined the drive that led up to the house. As Judith drew rein she felt her brash young assurance suddenly desert her. This was the home of a simple country gentleman. He had a wife who was ill. It was too early in the morning to be paying a call.

Turning the mare, she drove back down the hill to the lane. She would look over the schoolhouse first.

In the whitewashed log kitchen of Timberley black Millie moved sluggishly from table to stove. The only Negro this side of Woodridge, Millie was further proof of the Tomlin-sons' Virginia origin. Technically on free soil ever since she and her husband had come out with the young Roger Tom-linsons forty years ago, Millie scorned all ideas of emancipation as bloodily achieved in the recent war. Of that original young quartet, half white, half black, there were only Ann Tomlinson and Millie left. And they belonged to each other. Hadn't they both buried their husbands right on this same ground? All the proclamations ever proclaimed could not free Millie from Miss Ann, nor Miss Ann from Millie.

She was alone in the kitchen this morning, which marked it as a morning extraordinary, for usually Miss Ann's cheerful

presence pervaded the place. Without it, slow-moving Millie never could have achieved the preparation of breakfast. And breakfast at Timberley was an important meal. It was not served at daybreak, according to the custom of other farmers in the district. The Tomlinson men had been out and about their work for some time before the big bell rang, and when they came in it was to sit down to a table at which all members of the family gathered, not only for food but for morning prayers. There were never fewer than ten about that well-spread table, and seldom was the number that small. For rare was the day that some relative or neighbor or stranger waiting for the stagecoach did not sit down to table with the Tomlin-sons. Richard's wife said they might as well be running a tavern. But neither Richard nor his mother would have it any other way. It had been like that in Roger Tomlinson's time; like that it should continue.

As Millie wrestled with the breakfast this morning she could see through the window young Will Tomlinson and Jesse Moffat, who had finished feeding long ago and were washing at the bench outside. Heads together, they talked earnestly as they bent over the washbasin, and Millie knew what they were talking about. Her black face puckered with anxiety.

Through this same window she had a view of the small courtyard formed by the jointure of the kitchen and the west wing of the house. Just beyond this was a well, and beyond the well a white picket fence which separated the back yard from the vegetable garden. There was a gate in this fence and two paths diverged from it. One led to the big barn set high on an adjacent knoll; the other led through a grape arbor to the orchards beyond. Between was a good clear view of open pasture and a glimpse of a small frame house. This cottage, built years ago by a Kentucky neighbor and abandoned when his wife died of malaria, had been bought in by the Tomlin-sons and christened by Millie ''the weanin' pen" because first one, then another of the Tomlinson daughters had set up

housekeeping there when first married. At the present time it was occupied by the youngest daughter, Jane, and her husband, Alec Mitchell.

Someone was coming from the cottage now. A small form, moving in swift leaps and canters like a frolicsome colt, was crossing the open field. Millie recognized the runner even at a distance and called to young Will.

''Thorne's comin'! Keep a lookout, Mistah Will, and don' let her go into the house."

Will lifted his head and looked toward the gate. Already a flash of pink was moving swiftly through the autumn nakedness of the grape arbor.

"Where's she been?" asked Jesse Moffat.

"Mother sent her over to Jane's last night and told her to stay there," frowned Will.

"Here, you!" He flung the water from his hands and dashed after the pink flash, which had darted through the gate and was streaking toward the side door of the house. He seized it at the very edge of the porch and dragged it back to the kitchen doorstep.

"You were told to stay down at Jane's till you were sent for. Why are you back here this morning?"

That the small person addressed was an alien in this sober, respectable household was evidenced in the bright mobility of her face and a certain delicate impudence of manner. Small-boned and fragile, she was none the less intrepid.

"I've got to see Richard," she said coolly.

"Richard's not here. And even if he were you couldn't see him."

"Where is he?"

"Gone to Woodridge. For Dr. Caxton."

The pink-sleeved arm gave a sudden twist and slipped from Will's grasp.

"No, you don't. Come back here." He recaptured his quarry and gave her a brisk shake.

"I'm just going down to the lane and wait for Richard."

"You're not going anywhere except back to Jane's like Mother told you. She's got enough on her hands without having you around. And Iceep away from Richard—if you don't want to get hurt."

She said carelessly, "I'm not afraid."

"Maybe not." retorted Will. "And maybe nobody cares whether you are or not. But it would be embarrassing for Richard if anything happened to you." And satisfied that he had given her sufficient jolt to hold her for the time. Will turned to the black woman standing in the kitchen doorway. "Keep Thorne with you, Millie, till Mother comes out."

Millie said, "Git in dat kitchen foah I paddles de bottom offen you," and Thorne obeyed, not because she feared the threat but because Millie shrewdly followed it with one more potent. "Ise goin' tell Mistah Richard how you disobeyed his ordahs."

Thorne said quickly, "Did Richard say I was to stay at Jane's?"

"He not only say you to stay there, he say he don' wanta see hair nor hide of you aroun' heah fo' de nex' six months."

"I don't beheve it," said Thorne calmly. Then, before Millie's swelling wrath could discharge itself, she asked in a lowered voice, "How is she, Millie? Is she any better this morning?"

"I don' know. I ain' seen nobody to ask. All I know is nobody in this house got any sleep las' night. And all on account of you."

"I didn't do anything," protested Thorne.

"You don' have to do nothin'. Jus' bein' heah is enough."

A footfall sounded in the covered passage, and a small woman came briskly down the shallow steps that bridged the space between the two floor levels. Ann Tomlinson had borne nine children and buried four of them, but she still had at sixty the energy of her younger son Will. She looked like Will.

In fact, she and Will were exactly alike. But it was her older son Richard whom she idolized.

She spoke to Millie, paying no attention to Thorne, whom her keen eyes spotted immediately.

"Take a tray in to Miss Abigail and stay with her while the rest of us have our breakfast."

"Is she by herself?" asked Millie uneasily.

"No. Kate's with her. When you go in, send Kate out here to help me." Miss Ann was already spooning fermity into a bowl from the iron pot on the back of the stove. She dropped two eggs into a boiling kettle and forked three crisp pieces of side meat out of a sizzling skillet.

Millie muttered, "She won't eat all that."

Miss Ann said firmly, "You must see that she does."

Millie's eyes rolled heavenward.

"She needs food," Miss Ann went on. "She's half starved. If she could be got to eat like other people she would get well." Opening the oven, she added a couple of delicately browned soda biscuits to the tray Millie was holding and gave her a slight shove. "There, go on. Get cream and butter from the table in the dining room. And hurry!"

Millie ambled up the steps, and Miss Ann turned to the small figure hunched beside the window, eyes watchfully focused on the lane. She regarded the child thoughtfully, as a problem to be solved.

"I told you to stay at Jane's house today, Thorne."

"I had to come back. I've something to tell Richard."

"Richard is not to be bothered today. Anything you have to tell him can wait."

Kate came down the steps, her youngest son in her arms. She at least seemed glad to see Thorne.

"Thank goodness somebody's here to mind Hughie. Take him, Thorne. And don't go giving him sugar to keep him quiet."

Kate, the second daughter, was married to Hugh Turner and lived three miles away on the Turner farm. Kate was the one whom Ann Tomlinson now called in family emergencies, her oldest daughter Annie having moved with her husband to Kentucky the year before.

The family was at the breakfast table when Richard returned with the doctor. They were sitting with bowed heads while Miss Ann (in her son's absence) said grace, rather sternly, as though reminding the Lord that she had her hands pretty full and could do with a little assistance. The two men, entering from the side porch, waited respectfully until the petition was concluded, then with a nod to those at the table crossed the room to the hall which led to the downstairs bedroom.

Kate looked at her mother and said, "Do you think one of us should go in there?"

Her brother Will said sharply, "'No. It's Rick's affair. Let him handle it."

Her mother said, "If Richard wants one of us, he'll call us."

Young Will scowled. "It's time Rick understood there's a limit to what the rest of this family can put up with. If she's sick and has to be humored, then for heaven's sake humor her and give the rest of us peace. And if she's not sick, then by George, it's time somebody took strong measures. If she were my wife, you'd see how I'd handle her."

Miss Ann said warningly, "Sssh! The children."

Four pairs of young eyes were fixed with varying degrees of interest and anxiety on Will's face. Kate's oldest boy, Richard's two little sons, and Thornewere listening attentively.

Will rose from the table and called to Jesse Moffat to come out to the barn when he had finished eating. Jesse, who enjoyed his meals and the accompanying family conversation, took another helping of fried apples and lingered, hoping to hear Dr. Caxton's verdict on Abigail.

He was not disappointed. In a short time the doctor re-

turned to the dining room, took a seat at the table, and immediately began upon the hearty breakfast set before him. In reply to inquiries he reported that Abigail was coming out to breakfast. Richard was helping her dress.

"You mean—she's—reasonable?" asked Miss Ann.

"Perfectly reasonable. My advice is for the rest of you to take no notice. As I've told Richard all along, there's not a thing the matter with her that a new baby wouldn't take care of."

The old doctor was speaking to Richard's mother and married sister. But Ann Tomlinson, conscious of the hired man's unabashed interest and the round-eyed curiosity of the children, said, "You young folks are through eating. You can go with Jesse up to the barn."

The children needed no urging. They were mortally afraid of the tall black-browed doctor and the vile-tasting medicine he carried.

There was no one left at the table except Dr. Caxton and the two women when Richard led his wife into the dining room. The invalid's eyes quickly searched the room, and Miss Ann knew that she had done well to send at least one of the children away before Abigail came in.

To the casual stranger Abigail Tomlinson was a pitiable object. But to the people who had to live with her she was a devil—or a cross laid on them by the Lord—according to individual viewpoint. Even in the full bloom of health she had been a difficult person. Now ravished by all the torments which beset neurotic invalidism, she was indeed a trial. She had been pretty at twenty, when Richard married her. But there was little trace of beauty in her now. Thin to the point of emaciation, her features sharpened by the ravages of insomnia, she looked like a woman of forty instead of twenty-seven.

But she was the woman Richard had married, she was the mother of his children, and for their sake and the sake of his

vows he would deal gently and patiently with Abigail as long as the two of them lived.

He drew out a chair for her now and seated himself beside her. Then, as though it were familiar routine, he began feeding her as he would have fed a child.

The others tactfully ignored this procedure. It had happened so often before. Except for its unusual violence Abigail's "spell" was following its ordinary- course. Her attacks always ended with collapse and total dependence upon the ministrations of Richard.

As she sat now, her eyes on his face as he fed her, there was something of triumph in her look. There was also something of pathos. Dr. Caxton, missing no move of his patient, thought, "Damn it! The woman's unhappy. She may be driving everybody crazy, but she's not suffering from hallucination. She's got some real grievance, and damned if I don't believe Richard knows what it is. Wonder what she's saying to him?"

The sick woman's lips were moving, but her words were inaudible except to the one for whom they were intended.

"You won't leave me today, will you, Richard?"

"I won't go far."

"You won't go over to Jane's to fetch that girl home?"

"She can't stay at Jane's all winter."

"Promise you won't bring her back yet."

"Eat your breakfast, Abigail, they're watching us."

"I won't eat another bite till you promise." Clawlike fingers gripped his wrist and stayed the hand that was feeding her.

"Very well. I promise." Beads of perspiration stood on the man's forehead.

The thin tight fingers slackened their hold. The doctor, watching, saw a look of satisfaction steal over the woman's face.

They were sitting thus when a horse-drawn vehicle turned into the lane and stopped outside the picket fence. Kate, who was facing the window, saw a woman approaching the house

and rose hurriedly to go to the door. There was a bell on the front door, and Abigail had been known to scream when suddenly startled by its Jangle.

A few minutes later Kate returned with an announcement more jarring to her sister-in-law's nerves than the peal of any doorbell. A lady from Terre Haute to see Mr. Richard Tom-linson.

Richard rose, but not before his wife's thin clutch had clamped upon his wrist.

"What woman do you know in Terre Haute?"

"None. Who is it, Kate?"

"She said you wouldn't know her name."

"What does she want?"

"She wouldn't say. You'll have to go see for yourself."

But Richard could go nowhere with Abigail's fingers binding his wrist.

"If some woman wants to see Richard, let her come in here."

He looked at his sister and said, "Ask the lady in here, Kate. There's no heat in the front room," quite as though that were his only reason for not going himself like a free man and finding out what was wanted.

Judith, waiting in the front room, looked about her with lively interest. It was an unusual room, to say the least; long, low-ceilinged, with a huge fireplace in the center in which hung a crane and copper kettle. Yet shelves of books flanked the fireplace, a square rosewood piano filled the space between the windows, and on the marble-topped table beside the family Bible and wax nosegay under glass lay a copy of David Copperfield—face down to mark the place.

Facing the chair in which Judith sat was a tall grandfather's clock. Its pendulum was still, and no reassuring tick noted the passing moments. Though the morning was still young, the hands of the clock pointed to half-past one. So like a ghostly

presence was the silent timepiece that she turned her chair to escape it—and saw the quaintest feature in the room.

In an alcove stood a great four-poster bed. Canopied and neatly spread with a handsome patchwork coverlid, it added rather than detracted from the charm of the room. Yet it was undeniably a bed, with a trundle bed beneath it. Judith wondered if it was used regularly or kept for unexpected guests.

And then her speculations were cut short by a pleasant voice inviting her into the dining room where there was a fire.

What Richard Tomlinson's real reaction was to the unexpected appearance of his chance companion at Macbeth would have been hard to guess from the immobility of his countenance.

"I don't know if you remember me, Mr. Tomlinson "

"Oh yes. I remember you quite well. Miss "

"Judith Amory."

"I didn't get your name in Terre Haute." Certainly none of the interested onlookers could have accused him of trying to hide anything.

"I must apologize, Mr. Tomlinson, for intruding "

"No apology is needed. You've come about the school, of course."

Judith almost gasped, so precipitately had her ruse worked. In the presence of his family Richard Tomlinson lost no time in establishing the basis of their acquaintance. Timberley school was as good as hers.

He introduced her to the others, and his mother insisted on her taking a place at the table. Hungry after her drive in the crisp morning air, Judith did not demur, and when a huge black woman lumbered in with fresh hot biscuits she helped herself copiously. Sweet country' butter, strawberry preserves, and whole spiced peaches, delectable in their own tangy juice, were pressed upon her. Now that the nature of her call was established, the Tomlinson women accepted her with the hospitality for which they were noted.

Meantime, the hawk-nosed doctor was enlarging upon the subject of the school. He, too, was a trustee, though he hadn't a child to his name, being a bachelor well past sixty. But he had ideas about education, and one of them was that no woman—particularly a young and delicate one (no compliment intended)—had any business teaching a country school.

"We've got boys at Timberley bigger than Richard himself. It takes a man to lick those fellows."

Judith was too shrewd to let herself be drawn into an argument with the old misogynist. She let him hold forth upon his favorite theme—woman's total inadequacy in any sphere outside the home—while she studied the women of Richard Tomlinson's household. His mother and sister she dismissed for what they appeared to be: two healthy, wholesome women, secure in their own small world.

But his wife was not so easily appraised. This was the invalid, who had been reported critically ill. Yet here she was sitting at the table in a rather handsome challis wrapper and apparently nothing the matter with her. She was frightfully thin and her color was bad, but to Judith, who had never seen Abigail Tomlinson in health, she did not look at all sick. She looked merely hungry.

The discovery came with something of a shock.

Then, while she answered questions put to her by the doctor, Judith became aware that Abigail was listening with keen interest to this talk about hiring a new teacher.

''You see, miss," Dr. Caxton was explaining, "nothing can be done until the school meeting. Mr. Tomlinson and I are only trustees, which means we handle funds and pay the teacher's salary after the district has selected him. We can call a meeting at the schoolhouse and place your application before it, but personally I think it's just a waste of time. Timber-ley district has never had but one woman teacher—Rosie MacGrath, who stood six feet and weighed a hundred and ninety—and even Rosie wasn't a success. It's my opinion that

the teaching profession is a strong man's job, barring female seminaries, which is where you've been teaching, you say."

Unfortunately Judith had already admitted that her experience had been confined to girls.

"But I can't agree with you, Doctor, that boys present the only disciplinary problem to the teacher. I've taught girls who were quite as difficult to control as any boy. Boys may be noisier, but girls are more sly. The more innocent they appear, the more likely they are to set the school in uproar, without ever being caught in mischief themselves."

Abigail Tomlinson opened her mouth as though to speak, then closed it.

Judith went on: "I don't believe any school can be controlled by force. If a teacher can't gain the respect of her pupils there will be no discipline, even though there are whippings every day. But if corporal punishment is needed at Timberley, I can administer it. To girls and boys alike."

An unexpected voice said harshly, "I think it's time Timber-ley had a woman teacher."

The effect was startling. The last person in the group from whom Judith had expected support was the wife of Richard Tomlinson.

"We've had men teachers for the last three years and all they've done is whip the boys ever so often to make the trustees think they're earning their salaries." Abigail looked at her husband accusingly.

He said to Judith, "The last teacher spanked our six-year-old and I'm afraid my wife has never forgiven him." It was the first word Richard had spoken since his visitor sat down at the table.

"I never heard of a girl getting whipped," retorted Abigail, "though I could name one that needs it."

Her husband made no reply. She went on in the same harsh tone:

"You should call a school meeting at once. Then you and

Dr. Caxton should tell the district that Miss Amory is exactly the person we need at Timberley. Tell them how smart she is. They'll vote her in. They do pretty much what the trustees advise."

Thus coerced, Richard Tomlinson had no alternative but to promise to call the meeting.

Judith asked practically, 'TIow soon can that be?"

"Let's see. This is Friday. I'll post a meeting for Monday night."

That was three days hence. Judith was not sure she could remain that long at the Barclays'.

Abigail said, "You can stay here if you like."

If Ann Tomlinson had extended the invitation Judith would have accepted. But Ann and Kate had excused themselves some time ago.

Judith said, "Thanks, but I don't like to impose on anyone. Isn't there a boardinghouse in this vicinity?"

"This is as near a boardinghouse as anything you'll find," said Abigail tartly, and Judith wondered what gnawing grudge gave an edge to every word this woman uttered.

"Perhaps I can arrange with Mrs. Barclay to board me until Monday," said Judith. "And if I secure the school"—she just glanced at Richard Tomlinson—"I suppose other teachers have found board this side of Woodridge."

He answered, "The teachers of Timberley school have always boarded at Timberley."

He held the door for her as she went out, then followed her to the picket fence where her horse was tied. Four children who had been playing in the yard left off their game of hopscotch to watch in silence while Richard helped the stranger into the livery-stable buggy and untied the mare. Judith was too annoyed to notice whether the children were boys or girls, because their presence prevented her saying anything to Richard Tomlinson beyond a perfunctory good-by. But as she drove away she got the impression of children immediately swarming over him, and she was quite sure that the one clinging tightly to his arm was a girl.

CHAPTER 4

Late Friday afternoon small printed handbills appeared in Woodridge announcing the meeting to be held Monday evening at Timberley school. Dr. Caxton had placed the order with the Sentinel upon his return to town and the bills were run off and distributed in time to catch the Saturday market crowd. John Barclay reported Saturday night that interest was running high and Miss Amory could expect a full turnout.

Judith was spending the intervening time at the Barclays'. Grateful as she was for their makeshift hospitality, she still smarted with resentment that she had not been urged to stay at Timberley. But Richard Tomlinson had not seconded his wife's somewhat ungracious invitation. It was evident that he did not want Miss Amory at Timberley school. She wondered why. Her curiosity was stronger than her resentment, particularly when she remembered his wife's attitude. If his wife had opposed her she would have understood his aloofness. But Abigail had proved her ally, and the man on whom she had counted had maintained a cold neutrality.

She had plenty of time during the interim for shrewdly directed conversation with Mrs. Barclay.

"Abigail Tomlinson is spoiled and always has been," said Ellie Barclay with a sniff. "She was a Huse, and the Huses always thought they were blood relations to the Almighty. She got religion when she was a girl and it went kinda sour on her. No man ever born was good enough to be her husband.

She came mighty near being an old maid through her sanctifiedness. The Tomlinsons didn't know what they were taking on when they let Richard marry her. Richard's a good man, but he's the kind of man women can't seem to let alone. These spells Abigail has are nothing but jealous fits. She doesn't want him out of her sight, so she takes to her bed and won't cat unless he feeds her. Invalid, nothing! She's just a jealous fool."

"Jealous!" thought Judith, remembering the sick woman's open partisanship toward herself.

"Mrs. Tomlinson was very nice to me," she said.

"Oh, she wouldn't be jealous of you," was the prompt though unflattering assurance.

On Sunday, as a matter of policy, Judith went to church with the Barclays. She was quite sure that church attendance in this community would be a definite asset. She had another object, more personal, which was doomed to disappointment. Not until she was tightly squeezed into the Barclays' Baptist pew did she learn that the Tomlinsons were Methodists.

On Monday the question of her own presence at the school meeting became an issue. John Barclay assured her it was not required. She would be notified of the outcome of the voting.

"Don't you think an applicant has a better chance if she meets personally the people who are to decide on her merits?"

"In case of a man, yes. But where the applicant is a lady— if you'll pardon my saying it, Miss Amory—I believe you'll do yourself more harm than good by attending."

Judith thought otherwise.

Late that afternoon she walked across town to the Henderson livery stable for the purpose of again securing the bay mare and phaeton. She would take Ellie Barclay with her for propriety's sake, but nothing was going to prevent her attendance at Timberley schoolhouse that night.

A voice accosted her as she crossed the courthouse square. If she had not heard her name spoken she would have ignored

the flourish of the lifted hat, for she was holding her head very high to show these country bumpkins that she was a lady. But she was forced to pause when a masculine voice spoke her name.

"Miss Amory! May I speak to you a moment?"

It was Lucius Goff of the Terre Haute Express.

At Judith's chill greeting he fell into step beside her, because it was not good manners to stand talking on the street.

"John Barclay tells me you won't be at the schoolhouse tonight. If you'll pardon me. Miss Amory, I think you're making a mistake. In a district solidly prejudiced against female instructors, your only chance is to meet with the voters personally. If they could see you and talk to you they would change their minds."

This was Judith's opinion exactly, but she was too wise to respond to Lucius's flattering smile. When it was followed by an offer to drive her out to the schoolhouse that evening she declined with thanks. Shrewd judgment warned that her appearance at the school meeting thus squired might create the wrong impression.

"I've already arranged to attend the meeting, Mr. Goff."

"Really? Then I shall hope to see you there. And may I wish you the best of luck?" He stood courteously, hat in hand, as she bowed and went on her way. But she was conscious of the sly amusement in his smile.

The rig at Henderson's was available. She invited Mrs. Barclay and Jennie to accompany her. They accepted with enthusiasm.

By seven o'clock Timberley schoolhouse was crowded; not solely through interest in things educational, but because a gathering of any kind was a social event. Bachelors, spinsters, and childless widows drove five and six miles to vote for a teacher they might never meet. Parents of school-age children were only slightly in the majority. The most belligerent mem-

ber of the district was old Alf Butterick, none of whose ten daughters had ever darkened a schoolhouse door. Butterick was fanatically opposed to female education, and it was a foregone conclusion that he would block any attempt to hire a woman teacher at Timberley.

All this Mrs. Barclay explained to Judith as they sat at a double desk in a rear corner, from which N'antage point Judith had a good view of the room in which she hoped to teach.

It was a square enclosure of four log walls, chinked and cal-cimined against the weather and perforated along the sides with small deep windows. A rusted stove, a teacher's desk on which reposed a globe slightly bashed at the equator, a blackboard, a wall map, a shelf of miscellaneous debris, and five rows of rough pine desks and benches completed the furnishings. Never had Judith Amory taught in such crude surroundings. Yet never had she so coveted a position.

"That's Jane Mitchell and her husband over there." Mrs. Barclay pointed to a young woman in a scarlet hood with a grinning young man in tow. "Now I believe Alec Mitchell might vote for you. He's a good-natured fellow. He hasn't been married very long. Suppose I take you over and introduce you."

Judith declined. She would rather no one knew of her presence yet. Not even to herself did she admit that she was waiting for Richard Tomlinson.

When he came in he did not even see her.

He shouldered his way through the crowded room and mounted a little platform. He wore the same dark blue greatcoat which had been so much in his way that night at the theater, and his handsome head towered above the heads about him as it had towered that night. He was again the man Judith had met under adventurous circumstances, and she thrilled at sight of him until her own tingling cheeks warned her that Mrs. Barclay's sharp eyes missed nothing.

She glanced swiftly around to see if anyone else was watching and encountered Lucius Goff's amused recognition. He

and Dr. Caxton had followed Richard in. The doctor had gone forward, but Lucius remained near the door. He had missed nothing of Judith's reaction to Richard Tomlinson's entrance.

She acknowledged his bow with a frosty little nod.

The meeting was called to order and proceeded at once to the business of considering the application of Miss Judith Amory for the balance of the school year at Timberley.

Three men were on their feet immediately.

"Mr. Chairman, we don't want any women "

"We need a man at Timberley big enough to whip those Pettigrew young ones "

"Mr. Chairman, I move "

Richard Tomlinson rapped for order.

"You will please wait until the Chair calls for discussion."

There was a lull. Timberley district was the home of the monthly debating society. Roheit's Rules of Order was revered like the Decalogue.

Richard continued: "In presenting this application I would like to state that it has been carefully considered by the trustees. Dr. Caxton and myself have met the applicant and examined her. It is true that the applicant is a woman. But we believe she is sufficiently' intelligent to handle the school without recourse to corporal punishment."

A voice from the back of the room called, "You got a point there, Richard. Good hickory switches are gettin' scarce around here."

The laugh that followed eased the hostile atmosphere. Judith looked round to see the rustic wit who had come to her aid. Mrs. Barclay whispered, "Henry Schook. He's a great cutup." Richard Tomlinson talked on to a roomful of people who were suddenly amenable to persuasion.

And he could persuade them, if anyone could.

Mrs. Barclay whispered, "Don't you love his voice? He studied for the ministry, you know."

This information came as a surprise to Judith, who had been

remembering a man who slipped away to see a Shakespeare play.

As he talked on, earnestly building up the case for a female instructor at Timberley, she wondered at his reversed attitude. Had he changed his mind or had his wife changed it for him? Did he really want Miss Amory teaching the school, or was his first cool response his true feeling?

Suddenly, from trying to hide behind Mrs. Barclay, Judith sat up as tall as possible to attract the speaker's attention. She wanted him to see her and be caught off guard. She wanted to surprise his honest reaction to her presence when his wife was not beside him.

The man in front shifted his position, Judith moved a little, and Richard looked straight into her eyes.

His whole face kindled with surprised pleasure. He interrupted his own remarks:

"I find that the applicant is here this evening. You can see and hear her for yourselves. Miss Amory, would you please come to the platform?"

Judith responded. She spoke briefly, stressing the need for mental, not physical, superiority in the matter of discipline. She was willing to take the school with the understanding that she would resign if found incompetent. Her cool assurance made a stronger impression than any record of accomplishment. Hostility and skepticism gave place to conviction that here was a smart young woman.

Elated, she looked over the crowded room. Her eyes encountered Lucius Goff's. He nodded with a congratulatory grin. She looked swiftly away and met another pair of eyes. A little girl, leaning on the desk in front of her, was watching the two people on the platform. Her eyes moved from Judith to Richard, then back to Judith again. They were large dark eyes and so arresting in their gaze that Judith began to feel uncertain and confused. She hastily concluded her remarks and sat down.

When the vote was taken and her application accepted, she had a cowardly impulse to run and hide. So acute was her discomfort by this time that she began to wish she had never apphed for this school. And all because a mere child had looked with strange intentness upon two people as they stood together on a platform.

Strangers were crowding around to meet the new school-ma'am, and over their heads Judith saw Mrs. Barclay's hand waving triumphantly and Lucius Goff's hat held high in a flourish. Even gruff old Dr. Caxton was shaking her hand and pledging his support. Everyone seemed bent on wishing her well. Everyone but the man for whom her eyes were searching.

She saw him standing a little apart, talking to the young Mitchells. Jane Mitchell had removed her scarlet hood, and her resemblance to Richard was so strong that Judith guessed her to be another of his sisters. The little girl with the disturbing eyes was hanging on his arm, and suddenly Judith recalled the girl who had clung to him that day as she drove away from Timberlcy. It was the same child.

Straining a listening ear, Judith heard her plead:

''Let me go home with you, Richard. Please!"

He put an affectionate arm around her, but his answer was inaudible.

"But why, Richard? I don't do anything. I'll keep out of her sight. If you'll just let me come back with you."

The three adults talked on. Suddenly the young husband's voice rose above the others.

"Understand, Richard, we don't mind having her. But there's only one bedroom, you know—and Thorne's getting to be a big girl—and with Jane the way she is "

For the first time Judith noticed that the young wife was pregnant.

Richard said, "You and Jane go on, Alec. I've this business here to finish up, then I'll stop on my way home and talk things over." He looked down at the child. "Don't worry,

Cricket. We'll have you home before long." And playfully rumpling her hair, he told her to run along with the Mitchells.

Judith's eyes followed the trio as they made their way out. Then she turned to discover, with a start, that Richard was standing at her elbow.

"There are some details which we might as well settle tonight, Miss Amory. How soon will you be ready to start? . . . Next week? ... Good. We've lost time enough already."

His manner was crisp and businesslike. She replied in the same tone:

"I'll have to go back to Terre Haute first. But I can be ready a week from today."

"I'll have the building cleaned and we'll see if something can't be done about that stove. By the way—you'll board at Timberley. If that's satisfactory to you."

"Perfectly satisfactory'," said Judith.

"Dr. Caxton will settle the remaining details. Don't hesitate to call on me for anything needed. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll say good night."

"Good night, Mr. Tomlinson."

He was gone without even a handshake.

Dr. Caxton was saying, "The only thing left to be settled is the salary, and there's nothing to settle about it because it's forty dollars a month, take it or leave it."

At the moment Judith felt like leaving it.

Instead, she found the salary quite satisfactory and herself engaged to teach the Timberley school.

CHAPTER 5

Five weeks from the night Judith faced her reflection in Mrs. Prewitt's cracked looking glass while dressing to go to the theater she sat before the mirror in what the Tomlin-sons called the bird's-eye-maple room. The face that looked back at her seemed to belong to a different person. Gone was the taut anxiety of the mouth, the pin-point sharpness of eyes worn with contriving. For the first time since her father's death Judith Amory knew the luxury of a home.

She thrilled to the knowledge that the whole family welcomed her presence. Richard's mother, his married sisters, even his young brother Will seemed pleased to have the schoolmistress in the house. Their cordiality had in it something of relief from strain. A far less discerning person than Judith would have sensed that her presence had much the effect of a cup of oil poured on bubbling waters. For the simple reason that Richard's wife had taken a fancy to her.

To Judith this paradox was exquisitely humorous.

She was too smart, however, to misinterpret the invalid's good will. For some purpose of her own the wife of Richard Tomlinson wanted Miss Amory to have the Timberley school. Judith was not long discovering what that purpose was.

Abigail wanted a teacher who would promise to whip Thorne Tomlinson.

She did not put the matter in plain words. The new teacher might go to Richard and ask questions. But she let Judith know that she favored her because of her stand on the subject of discipline for girls. Abigail had fallen into the habit of calling the schoolmistress into her room when she came from school in the afternoon and asking how the Tomlinson young

people were doing. Judith soon learned that there was only one with whom she was really concerned, and that was the girl with the starry eyes. She inquired perfunctorily about her own little boys in the primer class, likewise the Turner nephews and nieces. But when she asked about Thorne her eyes glittered and she licked her lips eagerly when Judith confessed the child was something of a problem.

''She's like what you said, isn't she?" said Abigail. "One of those sly sneaking things that throw a whole school in a turmoil."

Honesty compelled Judith to deny that she had found anything sly or sneaking in Thorne.

''On the contrary, she's quite open in her mischief. She's forever playing tricks to amuse the other children. Sometimes I think she lacks concentration. Yet she seems remarkably bright, if only she would pay attention. I've about made up my mind to speak to Mr. Tomlinson about her."

And this was true. Judith had been puzzled by the puckish behavior of the half-grown girl who went by the name of Tomlinson yet who called Richard by his first name while the other children called him either Father or Uncle. She had asked no questions, and no one had offered an explanation. But whatever Thorne's status, she was hated by Abigail Tomlinson with a jealous hatred that was hard to reconcile with the difference in their ages.

"Don't talk to Richard about her," said Abigail sharply. "Anything that concerns Thorne you're to take up with me. Understand?"

When Judith had acquiesced Abigail went on:

"She needs discipline. You have my permission. Miss Amory, to use any means you like to bring about results, Mr. Tomlinson is too easy. He doesn't realize that girls have to be whipped sometimes—whipped hard—harder than boys. I've a very good whip if you need it." The sick woman raised herself on her elbow and pointed to a peg in the

corner. "There it is, an old riding whip that I once used on a bad-tempered horse. Perhaps you'd better take it with you.

There was something fantastically ugly in this sick, frail woman half rising from bed to point out a cruel whip with which she wanted a little girl flogged. But to please the invalid Judith took the whip and promised to use it at her own discretion.

A few days later, when she was again summoned to Abigail's room, she gave her a conspiratorial smile and reported that Thorne was behaving much better.

"You whipped her?"

"Sssh!" Judith put her finger to her lips and saved the necessity of direct falsehood. "We don't want anyone else to know, do we?"

"You mean Richard?" Abigail's eves gleamed jealously. "She'll tell him."

"I don't think she will," said Judith smoothly.

To the Tomlinsons she never could have explained her method of appeasing the invalid. If she had said, "All you have to do is lie to her," they would have been shocked. In this stanch Methodist household a lie was an abomination and no extremity of circumstance justified its use. To the young woman who had lived all her life by her wits, deception was one's first expedient. She could pretend to anything that served her purpose, and her purpose just now was to cement the friendship of Richard Tomlinson's wife.

She had arrived a bit wistfully at this compromise with certain groundless hopes. For the memory of a night at the theater still lingered like the scent of a rose. A single incident had pressed it imperishably.

It was the custom of the Tomlinson household to gather about the fire of an evening, and while knitting needles clacked and jackknives plied, Richard would read aloud. Many a sock was knitted, many a whip mended, amid whole-

some chuckles at the antics of Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller. Dickens was the best-selhng author of the day, and the family reading circle was about halfway through David Copperfield at the time of Judith's advent.

There had been no evening readings for some time previously because of Abigail's illness and Thorne's enforced absence. But on the first evening that the new boarder took her place among them they were all present, Abigail sitting up for the first time in days, and Thorne back among the other youngsters clustered about the fire.

The fat red volume of Dickens still lay face open on the table where Richard had last laid it. But instead of resuming the novel he went to the bookcase and took from it a small black book well worn with much reading.

"Aren't we going to hear some more about Uriah Heep?" demanded his son Ricky.

"Suppose we let Uriah rest for tonight. Here's something more exciting."

"What?"

"A play called Macbeth."

"How does it begin?"

"Oh, it begins with a bang. Listen." He began to read: " 'Act I, Scene i—An Open Place. Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.'"

And then he lifted his eyes from the book and looked straight at Judith.

That was all. Just a twinkle of the eye. But it brought again the shared thrill of waiting for a curtain to rise and it sent her spirits soaring. That had been her welcome from Richard Tomlinson.

So far, it was the only welcome he had given her. She had not talked alone with him once. They met at mealtimes, but he was usually engrossed in some talk about the farm with his brother or Jesse Moffat. During the day their paths seldom crossed, and at other times he was generally to be found with his invalid wife. Abigail seemed jealous of every moment that he was out of her sight.

It was a strange marriage, Judith decided. From what Ellie Barclay had told her and what her own sharp eyes had seen, she was able to conjecture pretty accurately how it had come about.

Richard Tomlinson had been in his second year of college when he came to the conclusion that he was not fitted for the ministry. His decision had been a crushing blow to family and friends. So marked were his talents that it seemed even to the materialistic that he was throwing away a brilliant career, for it was a day of pulpit oratory. But Richard considered the pulpit something more than a rostrum for rhetorical eloquence. Far from being irreligious, as of course he was branded, he was deeply conscious of the sacredness of the high calling to which so many ambitious men aspired. To his mother he explained that he did not consider himself good enough to be a preacher. And that was the only defense he ever offered.

His father, even then in his last illness, never recovered from the blow. He had hoped to see his son ordained before his death. Now that hope was blasted. But a stubborn belief that Richard might yet be brought to see the error of his ways led the dying man to arrange a marriage which was to prove a calamity to the entire family.

Abigail Huse, at twenty one of the zealots of the Methodist Church, was chosen by Roger Tomlinson as a fitting wife for his son. She was a couple of years his senior and her religious zeal, so his father hoped, would inspire Richard to resume the work for which he had been preparing.

Richard, eager to appease his disappointed father, had entered into the marriage without protest. Abigail was pretty, angelically "sweet," and he was barely eighteen years old. He was prepared to be a loving husband.

But scarcely were they joined in wedlock when he realized that he was yoked to a woman who was "good" in every negative connotation of the word. Abigail's was a nature in which religion's only property was to curdle what milk of human kindness it exuded. All that was harsh and repressive in the doctrines of the church she adhered to. All that was gracious and loving she distrusted. Her outward sweetness was a mask which she did not bother to wear in private. She had married Richard to save him from the devil, and this she would do if she had to take him personally to hell in order to negotiate.

Their marriage was a nightmare from the beginning. On their first night together he had found himself clasping a snow maiden who would not melt or even thaw in his arms.

"Richard! I thought you were a gentleman."

"I'm your husband, Abigail."

"That's no excuse for behaving like a brute."

If it had been left to the bewildered, apologetic boy, the marriage would have terminated right there. For he had married a fanatical prude whose frigidity was matched only by her arrogance.

But Abigail had intelligence of a sort, and much reading of the Old Testament enlightened and finally convinced her of the nature of the curse laid upon Eve. With an air of martyrdom she informed her husband that she was ready to obey the biblical injunction. In due course of time their son Richard was born.

A year later—again by Abigail's decree—there was a second son. But when, after the usual interval, she stonily signified her willingness to assume again the burden of reproduction, Richard told her they would have no more children. He was kind enough to imply that consideration for her health was the reason.

But Abigail knew better. For perversely, with the birth

of her son Roger, some belated seeds of passion stirred in her frozen nature and with her husband's announcement sent forth shoots, seeking a sun which no longer shone. From that moment her life was like a creeping vine.

They continued to occupy the conjugal bedchamber, for separate quarters would have meant a community-wide scandal, and Richard had enough talk to live down as it was. But though he preserved the outward semblance of his marriage, his private conduct toward his wife was as chaste as hers had been on their wedding night.

Abigail's desires, thus frustrated in their inception, found vent in the pursuit of her original purpose. Night and day she exhorted and berated her husband for his refusal to enter the ministry. When he turned a deaf ear she denounced him as no Christian.

Perhaps he was too much a Christian to be a theologian. Though Abigail never could have understood a thing like that. Even he did not understand it. What he did know and could not explain was the riotous joy of living which throbbed in his veins and which his strict upbringing made him distrust. Perhaps, as he feared, his Puritan soul was housed in a pagan body. Perhaps he had merely a love for things of the earth. Every opening bud, every note of mockingbird and cardinal, was a delight to him. In spring, when redbuds blossomed and honey locusts made him half drunk with their sweetness, he felt quite sure he was not called to tell other people about their sins.

So he had settled down to the business of managing the farm (an occupation for which his younger brother was better fitted), and for enjoyment he turned to books and for escape there was the occasional trip to the city and perhaps the theater. This last indulgence was frowned upon by Abigail, but he did not let it deter him. He no longer tried to explain himself to Abigail, nor to his family, nor to anyone.

Not until a vagabond child came to Timberley did Richard find it possible to explain himself. And to her, it was unnecessary.

There was no one in the front room when Judith came downstairs. She had changed from her school dress to her dark red merino and she had tied a velvet ribbon around her throat. It was a Friday evening, which meant that young Will would go to see the girl whom he was currently "sparking," and there would be no one in the fireside reading circle except the children and their grandmother and Richard and Judith.

Abigail had taken to her bed again.

But the fire, which was never lighted in this room till after supper, was already brightly ablaze. The piano was open, the chairs grouped around it as though in expectation of a gathering. No open book, laid face down to mark a place. Judith had a premonition of disappointment.

When she went out to the dining room Miss Ann confirmed her fears. Richard was having company this evening.

"Lucius Goff, John Barclav, and Doc Baird. The four of them get together about once a month—at the academy, as a rule—but since Abigail's been sick she doesn't like having Richard out at night, so the men are coming here, I told Richard they could have the front room to themselves. You and I and the children will sit out here till bedtime. We can have our apples as usual and maybe you can read to us instead of Richard. We're all on pins and needles to see if anything's turned up yet for Mr. Micawber." Ann Tomlinson laughed merrily and tucked a curly gray lock under her neat little cap. It was impossible to resist her good humor. Judith agreed to carry on with the misfortunes of the Micaw-bers.

Abigail registered disapproval of the evening's program by refusing to appear at the supper table. She kept to her bed

the greater part of the day, but she usually got up for the evening meal. Richard's habit was to enter the house through her room, whieh had an outside door, assist her to dress, and bring her out to the dining room. But tonight she was not with him.

He eame alone from his wife's room, carefully shaved and brushed and wearing his broadcloth suit in honor of the expected company. But his lips were tight and there was color in his cheeks as he explained that Abigail did not feel like coming to the table. Could Millie fix a tray?

"Do you suppose she'll eat it?" said Miss Ann doubtfully.

'I'll have to feed her," he said.

Impulsively Judith spoke. "No. You must stay with your friends. Let me take the tray in. I can get her to eat."

He looked at Judith with a curious mingling of gratitude and desperation.

"Do you suppose you could?"

"I can try. She seems to like me."

"Yes, I've noticed that." He spoke in an odd tone, as though the fact puzzled him.

"But Miss Judith shouldn't be allowed to spoil her own supper waiting on Abigail," said his mother.

"No, of course not," he said quickly. "Though I appreciate your kindness. Miss Judith."

It was not her supper which Judith was loath to miss, but the enjoyment of dining with Richard and his friends. Nevertheless, she insisted:

"Your place is in here. Please let me take the tray to Miss Abigail. We can eat our suppers together."

In the end he acquiesced.

She found the invalid lying flat on her back, hands crossed on her breast, looking as much like a corpse as possible. When she set the tray on a table by the bed Abigail demanded:

"Where's Richard?"

"He's taking care of his friends. Don't you hear them?"

Already the sound of mascuhne voices and laughter floated down the hall. Judith drew a chair to the bedside and spread a napkin over Abigail's nightgown.

"Would you like to hold your own plate, or shall I feed you? I know it's hard to feed oneself in bed," said Judith tactfully.

But Abigail would neither eat nor be fed.

"I told him I wouldn't eat any supper. I'll show him."

For a second Judith contemplated the exquisite pleasure it would afford her to strangle the woman on the bed.

She set the plate back on the table and picked up her own knife and fork.

"I hope you don't mind if I go on with my own supper. I've had a busy day. I'm hungry."

Judith began eating with as keen an appetite as though the sick woman were not lying there watching her like the death's-head at the feast.

When she had finished her meal she tried once more.

"Shall I have your supper warmed up for you? I'm afraid it's getting cold."

Abigail said, "I don't want anything. Take it away."

Judith pushed the table back against the wall.

Abigail's hands still lay folded upon her shrunken breast. Her eyes stared at the ceiling. She said in a hollow tone, "I'm dying. He'll see. When I'm dead he'll believe I knew what I was talking about."

Her face in the lamplight was bloodless. For a moment Judith felt a thrill of alarm.

Then Abigail flopped on her side and with reassuring spitefulness demanded, "Where's that girl?"

"What girl?"

"You know what girl. The one you whipped."

"Oh, you mean Thorne? She's at the Mitchells' this week."

"She hasn't been around here?"

"I haven't seen her."

A look of satisfaction stole over the sick woman's face.

'"Have you whipped her any more?"

A feeling of revulsion swept Judith. She felt something akin to abhorrence for the woman on the bed.

"No, Mrs. Tomlinson, I have not whipped Thorne. She hasn't needed it. She's not a bad girl. She's just—a little different."

''That's because she's a witch!"

Judith remained silent, too exasperated to argue.

"Yon don't believe in witches, do you?" said Abigail.

''Certainly not."

"That's because you don't read your Bible." Abigail rose on her elbow and reached for the well-worn Testament on the stand. "Here, read Luke 8:2 if vou think I'm crazy."

Judith took the book and turned the silky pages till she came to the passage:

" 'And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils . . .' "

"There!" Abigail interrupted triumphantly. "Do you believe the Bible, or don't you?"

Judith laid the book back on the table.

"Devils, as referred to in the Orient," she said, "mean nothing more nor less than epilepsy. Is Thorne an epileptic?"

"She's a witch. Like those witches in the play Richard read to us." Abigail, who frowned upon all profane literature, had been avidly interested in the reading of Macbeth. "They weren't epileptics, were they? Neither were the witches in the Bible epileptics. I haven't got an Old Testament here"—she was sitting up in bed now in her excitement—"but just you read the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. First Book of Samuel 28:7."

Judith had read the story. She inquired, "Is Thorne a mistic?"

This was a strange word in Abigail's vocabulary, "What do you mean?"

"The witch of Endor was a medium. She called up the spirit of Samuel and let Saul talk to him. Does Thorne claim to get messages from people who are dead?"

Abigail lay back on her pillow with a disgruntled sniff.

"I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. She's full of tricks."

"What kind of tricks?" asked Judith curiously. She had often wondered what went on behind Thorne's big geography in school to cause such distraction among the pupils.

"Devilish tricks," said Abigail. "I've seen her make a rose bloom right out of thin air. And once she took a live baby chick out of Jesse Moffat's cap when he had just taken it off his head."

Judith was suddenly enlightened. "But that's not witchcraft! That's sleight of hand. I saw a man in Chicago do that sort of thing. Where did Thorne learn such tricks?"

"That's what I want to know. Nobody could do things like that unless they were in league with the devil."

But Judith was thinking rapidly.

"How did Thorne come to live here?" she asked.

"There was a terrible storm one night and the bridge over Little Raccoon went out. A covered wagon went with it. Richard was coming home from the Debating Society and saw the accident. Everybody in the wagon was drowned except this girl. At least, that's the story he told. Though it always seemed funny to me that no trace of wagon, horses, or drowned bodies was ever found."

"And he brought the child home with him?"

"Yes," said Abigail shortly. "I was sitting in the front room with Miss Ann—my own two babies asleep in the trundle—when he came in. He had this girl in his arms, wrapped up in his coat like a drowned puppy. All she could tell about herself was that her folks had been moving to Kansas."

"How long ago was that?" asked Judith.

"More than a year ago."

Thorne must have been about twelve then. She couldn't be much over thirteen now.

Abigail went on bitterly: "He promised that he would find a home for her. Right away. But she's still here."

"It isn't always easy to find a home for an orphan."

"He won't try. He refused to give her to a family in Wood-ridge who wanted a girl to work for her board and keep."

No, thought Judith, it would have taken a harder man than Richard Tomlinson to have given that elfin child into servitude.

Abigail continued bitterly: "She's bewitched him. He won't let her be treated as one of the help. He gives her his name and sends her to school and treats her like his own child—except that she's much too old to be his child. He thinks more of her than of his sons. He thinks more of her than he does of me."

Aye, there was the rub!

Judith said discreetly, "I can see how you might have found it inconvenient to take another child to raise when you already had two of your own. But of course she's not a witch."

But Abigail's gloom did not lighten. "I've been ill ever since she came here. How do you explain that?"

Judith might have explained that jealousy was slow poison, but she only smiled.

"That's just a coincidence. You're not really ill. Only nervous. You'd be well in no time if you'd start eating again. Come, let's begin now. I'm going to take your supper out to the kitchen and warm it up. Then I'm coming back and sit with you while you eat."

Abigail made no protest as Judith carried out the tray.

CHAPTER 6

The dining room was deserted except for the children. Male voices mingled with the sound of the piano indicated that Richard and his friends had adjourned to the front room. The supper table was cleared, but at one end of it three heads were bent over some toy or game. As Judith passed through with Abigail's tray she said pleasantly, "Hello, Thorne. I didn't know you were here," and the dark head came up in startled alarm.

"She's staying with us while Aunt Jane and Uncle Alec go to choir practice," explained Ricky.

"I just came," said Thorne quickly.

She had worn Jane's scarlet hood, and it still hung by its strings about her shoulders. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy from her run through the crisp night air—the Mitchells had dropped her at the lane—and she seemed alert with some happy expectancy.

Judith, fresh from her talk with Abigail, wondered if Richard knew the child had come.

"Does anyone know you are here, Thorne?"

"Gran'ma knows," said Ricky. "It's all right."

"You won't tell Miss Abigail?" said Thorne anxiously.

Judith shook her head. "Don't make any noise though, or she'll hear you."

"We won't," was the solemn promise, and the three heads bent once more over some object in Thorne's lap.

Judith, curious, paused behind Thorne's chair. The object on her lap was a remarkably homely rag doll. A scrap of flowered challis was pinned to its cotton body, and on its blank muslin face unspeakably leering features had been worked in darning cotton, Thorne was stitching a wad of auburn hair combings to its shapeless head.

"My goodness, Thorne, can't you make something prettier than that?"

"It isn't finished, Miss Judith. The dress is only pinned on."

It wasn't the dress that made it hideous. It was the grotesque face and the homemade wig.

"Where did you get the hair?" asked Judith.

"From the little china box in Mama's room," five-year-old Rodgie piped up. "Millie was going to empty it in the trash, but I saved it for my dolly. It is my dolly, isn't it, Thorne?"

"It is not, it's mine," said his older brother. "I got the dress, didn't I, from Mama's piece bag?"

They were still arguing ownership of the doll as Judith went down the covered passage to the kitchen.

Miss Ann was setting yeast for Saturday's baking, while Millie washed the vast array of supper dishes piled on the zinc-topped table. Judith explained her errand, which Miss Ann immediately vetoed.

"My dear, you're not going to spend your entire evening with Abigail. Just set the tray down on the oilcloth table and as soon as I get my hands out of this yeast I'll warm some soup and take it in to her. You've done enough by sitting with her while the rest of us ate supper."

Judith made but a halfhearted protest. She had had enough of Abigail for one evening.

"Isn't there something else that I can do? You seem to have your hands pretty full."

"You can take some cider in to the front room if you like. It's already been brought up from the cellar. In that jug there, under the pump, keeping cool. Just pour some in that blue pitcher. And you'll find glasses on the shelf in the cupboard. There's another tray, too, on top of the safe—reach it down for her, Millie—and that plate of gingerbread goes

with it. Jesse Moffat hasn't brought the apples up yet. When he does we'll take a bowl of them in too. Now, have you got everything?" asked Miss Ann briskly as Judith hesitated, tray in hand.

''Do you suppose it's all right for me to go in there?" She felt a sudden reluctance to crash the all-male gathering.

"To be sure it's all right." Ann Tomlinson's blue eyes twinkled. "Lucius Goff was disappointed when he didn't see you at supper."

It was not Lucius Goff whom Judith feared to offend, but she could riot explain that to Richard Tomlinson's mother.

She went back through the covered passage to the dining room, where she paused to rest her heavy tray and compose herself before entering the front room. She felt unaccountably warm and flushed.

Giggles from the foot of the table were quickly smothered at her reappearance. She wondered irritably why children always reacted to a schoolma'am as though she were an ogre. She wanted Richard's children to like her, not fear her. So she asked brightly how the doll was coming on.

Ricky cried eagerly, "Oh, I've got something better'n a doll. I've got a cow and she " and then choked and sputtered as Thorne's hand clapped over his mouth, extinguishing his enthusiasm.

"What about the cow?" asked Judith.

"Nothing," said Thorne. "I just made him a cow so he wouldn't want Rodgie's doll."

Judith went closer to look at the cow. It stood on toothpick legs in a flat saucer, looking exactly what it was, a ripe cucumber with a small potato stuck on one end. But the eyes of the potato gave it a ludicrously lifelike appearance, just as there had been something queerly expressive about the features of the doll.

"Her name's Flossie," said Ricky, " 'cause she's got a face just like Mr. Schook's Flossie that stays in our pasture."

Henry Schook had been pasturing his cows at Timberley until he got rid of the wild turnip that was infesting his own land.

Judith laughed at the cow and asked Thorne where she had found a cucumber so late in the season. She had brought it with her, she explained, from the Mitchells'. It was the last cucumber on the vine.

Stealthy quiet settled behind Judith's back as she went out of the dining room. She wondered what the little imps were up to now; then forgot all about the children as she paused outside the door to the front room.

Here, too, all was quiet. Where a short time before there had been laughter and music, there was now not even the murmur of conversation. The children back in the dining room were no more ominously hushed than were the men in the front of the house.

There was no answer to Judith's knock. After a second knock she quietly opened the door. The light from the hall lamp fell upon a room that was in darkness except for the glow of the fire.

Richard Tomlinson stood with his back to the hearth. John Barclay sat on the piano stool. Both were intently watching a small table at which sat Lucius Goff and Doc Baird. The hands of these two were lightly resting on the table.

Judith's apologetic "Please don't let me disturb you" brought an explosive ''Damn!" from Lucius and a discordant crash from the piano as John Barclay's arm hit the keyboard. Doc Baird pushed the table aside, and Richard touched a paper spill to the fire and lighted the candles. Then he came forward to relieve Judith of her tray.

"Thank you so much." His smile was reassuring, but she was conscious of nothing but a desire to be elsewhere. She turned quickly to leave, but he stopped her. "Please don't go yet. I'd like to present my friends."

Gathering together what shreds of dignity remained, Judith acknowledged the introductions. It seemed unnecessary to mention that she had met the gentlemen before. Nor did John Barclay or Doc Baird allude to any previous meeting. But Lucius Goff, who seemed still irritated at the interruption, drawled, ''Charmed, Miss Amory! I'm always charmed to meet you," then, coolly turning, spoke to the other men as though there were no lady present.

"I tell you it can be done under the proper circumstances. Doc and I had great success when we tried it alone. We've never succeeded wth other people around, but that's because something always occurs to break the concentration—like tonight."

He did not glance at Judith, but his rebuke was no less pointed.

"I don't say it can't be done," said John Barclay. "I merely say it's no proof of supernatural manifestation. We all know Doc Baird has some sort of magnetic power in his body. We've seen him cure too many headaches to doubt it. If he can stop a pain by laying his hands on the spot, there's no reason why he can't cause a table to move the same way. But that doesn't prove that spirits of the dead can communicate with us. I still say the Fox sisters were frauds."

Lucius retorted: "You're dodging the issue. Doc's power to cure aches and pains has nothing to do with psychic phenomena. I don't claim that table tipping is supernatural manifestation. But I do assert it is the power of mind over matter."

The schoolmaster smiled, but he shook his head.

"I've yet to see a piece of furniture move by someone's will power. You admit the table does nothing until Doc lays his hands on it. You and I tried it. You and Richard tried it. But only when Doc's hands touch it does it so much as quiver. Maybe it's just as well Miss Amory opened the door when she did. This is a good Methodist table, and I'm sure it would have been scandalized if Doc had raised it clear off the floor."

There was a laugh at that. Richard said hastily, before

Lucius's quick tongue could reply, "How about some more music? Perhaps Miss Judith will play for us and we can have a little harmony."

Judith had been listening with interest. She could have held her own in this argument. Her father had been a keen student of the occult. He had gone in for mysticism as some men go in for stamp collecting. Judith had a small trunk-ful of his books upstairs.

But it seemed there was to be no further discussion. The schoolmaster was relinquishing the piano stool to her; Richard was thumbing through a song book for some of his favorites. The room soon rang with "Captain Jinks" and "Nellie Gray" and "Camptown Races." Miss Ann and Millie, in the kitchen, hummed together over their work. The children in the dining room sang at their play. And Abigail, lying wakeful in her bedroom, sat up suddenly and reached for her wrapper. Through two closed doors, and under cover of a male quartet, she had caught the sound of a voice for which she had been listening.

After the last verse of "Annie Laurie" Judith excused herself. Much as she wanted to stay, she had the good sense to leave her audience clamoring for more.

"I'm sorry, but I really must go. I promised the children I'd read to them."

But when she had closed the door behind her she leaned against it for a moment, smiling in elation. Richard Tomlinson's obvious disappointment at her withdrawal was something to sleep on. She decided to go on up to her own room and not bother with the children tonight.

And then she heard a door open and close somewhere. Shuffling footsteps sounded along the passage. She knew those steps. Abigail was up and moving around in her clumsy bedroom slippers.

Judith thought, "She'll go into the dining room and find Thorne, and then there'll be the devil to pay." She had a swift vision of Richard humiliated before his guests. She had better take Thorne upstairs with her before Abigail made any discoveries.

The children still sat at the lower end of the dining table, so quiet that for a moment Judith thought they were asleep. But no, their eyes were wide open, fixed spellbound on the cucumber cow which Thorne had made. It still stood in the china saucer, and Thorne was pretending to milk it. She talked softly to it, the way a milkmaid talks when coaxing an animal to give down milk.

Judith went close and leaned across the table—if she called to Thorne, Abigail might hear—and then she stood stock-still with astonishment.

Thorne was actually milking the cucumber cow.

Incredible as it seemed, with each pressure of the small brown fingers on the toothpick udders, a tiny stream of milk squirted into the saucer.

How long Judith stood there, she was never sure. She never heard the opening of a door or the shuffling of bedroom slippers across a carpet. She heard nothing, saw nothing, except a slowly widening pool of milk in the bottom of a saucer.

Suddenly Thorne sat back in her chair and made a graceful little gesture of finale. "There, that's all!" She relaxed, as though her performance had been something of a strain.

But her juvenile audience was not satisfied. ''Do it again, Thorne. Make Flossie give more milk."

"Flossie can't give any more milk."

"Why?"

"She's sick. See? She can't hold up her head,"

And in truth the weight of the potato on the quill toothpick had caused it to sag in the overripe cucumber.

"Is Flossie going to die?" asked Ricky anxiously. After all, the cow was his property.

Suddenly Thorne saw a dramatic finish for her act and a way to avoid an encore.

"Flossie'll never give milk any more. She's dead."

She gave the wobbly head the slightest prod and it fell off. The legs crumpled beneath the cucumber, for all the world like the legs of an animal succumbing to sickness. There was nothing left of Flossie but a couple of vegetables and a few toothpicks.

And a small puddle of milk.

The little boys said solemnly, "Flossie's dead."

Judith came out of the grip of a spell incredibly potent. She opened her mouth to say, "A great performance, Thorne. Now tell us how you did it." But the words were never spoken. For another voice, harsh with triumph, came from across the room.

"Now do you believe she's a witch?"

Abigail stood there, clutching her challis wrapper around her emaciated body.

Judith thought swiftly, "She shouldn't have seen this," and wondered how she could prevent a scene.

"It's a trick, Mrs. Tomlinson. A sleight-of-hand trick. Thorne's very clever that way."

"It's witchcraft! I saw what she did. I saw her milk that cucumber. Roger, go tell your father to come here."

Rodgie, always fearful of his mother's wrath, moved promptly. But Judith's hand stayed him.

"Wait, Roger. Please, Miss Abigail, don't call Mr. Tomlinson. It's nothing to bother him about. I've been watching the children's play. It's only innocent make-believe."

"You saw her get milk from that cucumber after telling the children it was a cow."

"I saw her pretend to get milk from the cucumber."

Abigail thrust a finger into the saucer, then licked her finger.

"It's milk! Taste it, if you don't believe me."

"I don't have to taste it. I know it's milk. But it didn't come out of the cucumber."

"Then where did it come from?"

Judith was baffled. For a moment she could neither credit nor deny what her eyes had seen. Again Abigail ordered her son to fetch his father, and Judith watched the child depart, powerless to forestall the thing she had tried so hard to prevent.

All this time Thorne had said not a word. She stood a little apart from the others, her hands behind her back.

Judith turned on her with crisp schoolroom authority.

"Come, Thorne, show us how you played that trick."

She retrieved the toothpicks from the china saucer and stuck the legs back on the cucumber. But it was soft with much handling and immediately collapsed.

"Flossie can't stand up," said Ricky. "She's dead."

"Nonsense!" Judith spoke sharply to Thorne. "Make the cow stand up."

"I can't," whispered Thorne. It was plain she was frightened half out of her senses.

"Of course you can," said Judith. "You made the cow perform once. You can do it again. We all know it's just a trick. We want you to show us how it's done."

But Thorne's fear of Abigail had frozen her. She seemed unable to move or speak.

Abigail said, "She won't do it again because Richard's coming. She doesn't want him to know what devil's games she's been playing with his children. But Richard will know. Because she can't lie out of it this time. It won't be her word against mine. Nobody can say I was having hysterics this time. Because you saw it too. Miss Judith."

As her voice rose shrilly the hall door opened and Richard stood there. His glance swept the circle of frightened faces and came back to his wife.

"what's the matter, Abigail?"

"Maybe you'll believe me now, Richard. Maybe you'll believe this girl is a witch." Abigail pointed vindictively to Thorne.

''What are you talking about?"

"She made a cow out of a cucumber and milked it right in front of our eyes. If you think I'm crazy, ask Miss Judith. She's not your wife. She has no grudge against your little pet. Ask Miss Judith whether or not I'm telling the truth."

It was ghastly, indecent, the way the woman's voice rose higher and higher, screaming her senseless jealousy to all the house. Judith burned with vicarious humiliation for the man who stood so quietly under his wife's tongue.

He asked Thorne gravely, "Have you been playing tricks again, Cricket?"

His own youngsters clamored to testify. The six-year-old said, "She milked the cow. Father. We saw it." And the five-year-old, who had followed close on his father's heels, added, "When the cow died, no more milk would come."

Still Thorne would not speak. She looked at Richard silently, desperate appeal in her eyes.

He sat down at the table and drew her to him.

"Now, Thorne, I want you to make me a cow just as you did for the children. See, here's the cucumber and the potato. We'll put them together with these toothpicks. And then you'll show me how to milk her. Don't be afraid. No one's going to scold you. I just want to see how it's done."

What might have happened if a door had not opened: whether Thorne, in the protecting circle of Richard's arm, might have demonstrated the simple legerdemain, will never be known. For Jesse Moffat, coming in from the barn with the nightly basket of apples, made the announcement that he had just come across Henry Schook's cow lying dead in the pasture.

"Hadn't been dead long, either. Musta had poisonweed in her stomach when she come here. Why—what's the matter?" He stared blankly at the shocked faces about him.

Richard was on his feet as if bracing himself for an expected blow.

Abigail was screaming, "Now will you believe me? Now will you send that little witch away before she kills us all?"

"Abigail, will you be quiet?"

But the hysterical woman could not be quieted.

She turned on the startled farm hand. "Henry Schook's cow never died from poisonweed. She died from witchcraft, and there's the witch who killed her!" She pointed to the white-faced girl.

"No, no! I didn't kill the cow." Thorne looked at Richard frantically. "You don't believe I killed the cow, do you?"

"Certainly not. How could you kill anything by sticking toothpicks in a cucumber? Come, Abigail, you know you don't believe any such nonsense. You're just working yourself into a nervous spell."

Richard put his arm about his wife to lead her back to her room, but she pushed him away.

"You think I'm crazy! But ask Miss Judith. She saw that girl get milk from that thing she made. How did she do it, if poor Flossie wasn't bewitched?"

It seemed to Judith that the room was suddenly filled with people. Through the open hall door she saw the faces of Lucius Goff and Doc Baird and the schoolmaster. And in the doorway of the covered passage peered the round black face of Millie over the shoulder of Ann Tomlinson. Abigail's screams had penetrated the far corners of the house.

Judith said to Richard, "I saw Thorne milk the cucumber cow. But I've seen similar tricks before. It was just a piece of parlor magic. Of course it had nothing to do with the death of anyone's cow. But if Thorne would perform the trick again and show us how it was done, I think Mrs. Tomlinson would feel better."

Thorne was unable to perform the trick again. Even with Richard putting the cow together and making it stand, she could not draw milk. She was too nervous. Her hands shook so that she could only fumble and murmur frantically, "I can't, I can't."

"You see?" cried Abigail. "She drew the life from Flossie when she milked that toy. Now her victim's dead, she can't do anything with her witch doll."

At the word "doll" Thorne's eyes turned fearfully to the chair behind Abigail. Judith's eyes followed their glance. On the chair lay the rag doll Thorne had brought to Rodgie. All she had ever read on the subject of witchcraft warned Judith that Abigail in her present state must not see that doll.

"That's the way witches work," Abigail was saying. "They make dolls to represent their victims. Then they work their evil charms on the doll until their victim dies. Ask Millie. She knows."

But Millie had vanished. Doubtless she had been the source of much of the invalid's information.