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. . . No, I haven't had a easy minute sence I— What? Oh! Oh! Oh!—Well, thank you for callin' me, Miss Prudie."

Here she seemed to realize that Abner had entered the hallway, for she jumped up and ran and flung her arms about her foster-son.

"Oh, Abner! Abner! We've lost ever'thing! An' you, too! I knew we couldn't go on like this—that low-down snake-in-the-grass! I wush he was dead! To scheme aroun' an' sen' honest men to the pen!"

"Miss Haly," comforted Abner unsteadily, "I don't believe they'll do anything to Jim—he didn't mean no—"

"Oh, yes, they will, Prudie Rhodes was a-talkin' to Judge Stone's wife, an' Prudie said Jim had to use due diligence and caution—Jim's gone!" And here she fell to weeping outright.

"But, Miss Haly, you can nearly always beat the law, even if you done somethin'."

"Y-yes, b-but if y-you b-been honest it-it's diff'runt."

Abner stroked the woman's bony shoulders with a sick expression on his own face. "How's B'atrice Belle takin' it?"

"She's in bed—her head's killin' her."

"Well, you better go there, too, Miss Haly. Go to bed an' try to sleep."

The woman clung to the youth a moment longer, then pulled herself away and started up the stairway. "I—I wush Railroad Jones hadn't never been borned! I always thought he was a fine man. . . . D'reckon Adelaide is goin' to marry you, Abner?"

"I don't know, Miss Haly," said Abner.

"She—she's a good-hearted girl . . ." and Mrs. Sandage climbed unsteadily up the stairs with her hard hand leaning on the polished rail.

"I—I don't min' goin' back to the farm myse'f, but—but to think of B-B-B'atrice Belle . . ."

She held her teeth in place, exhaled a long hopeless breath