It was the thirty-first of October, All Souls’ eve, that mystic point of contact between the worlds when quick and dead are fabled to walk the ways of earth together, to meet eye to eye, and hold converse. A web of mountain legend clings dimly about this season.

The spirit of it—weird, elfin—was abroad, the air was full of it as, alone out in the gusty darkness of the autumn night, at eleven o’clock, Judith walked swiftly toward the Lusk place. Wrapped in a little packet she carried bread and salt, and a length of candle. She went across fields, and thus cut down the distance till it was possible to walk it in fifteen minutes.

As she approached the house, Speaker, a barely grown hound-pup, came rollicking out to meet her, leaping about her shoulder-high, frisking back toward the porch and waiting for her, all the while barking joyously.

“My Lord!” said Pendrilla’s sleepy small voice when Judith tapped on their window in the wing of the building where the girls roomed. “Ef that thar fool hound-pup ain’t loose! I hope he don’t wake up Grandpap. Cain’t you make him hush, Judith?”

Judith stooped and caressed the dog for a moment, quieting him. The girls presently appeared in the doorway fully dressed and, as it seemed, with their packets made, in addition to which Cliantha carried an old lantern unlighted in her hand.

“I’ll light it as soon as we get out in the road,” she announced whisperingly.

When they would have secured the dog that he might not follow them, they found that he, wise for his age, had disappeared.

“I bet he’s run down the road apiece; he’ll be a-hidin’ in the bushes waitin’ for us,” Cliantha opined pessimistically. But there was nothing to be done about it, and they set out, to be intercepted in just such manner as she foretold.

“I vow, I ain’t so mighty sorry Speaker’s along of us,” Pendrilla said after they had vainly browbeaten, threatened, and stoned the hound to drive him back through the gate. “He’s a mighty heap of company and protection out thisaway in the night.”

“Girls,” said Judith, suddenly halting them all in the little byroad which they were travelling, “don’t you think we’d better cut across here? Hit’ll be a lot nearer.”

“Grandpap’s jest ploughed that thar field to put in his winter wheat,” objected Pendrilla. “Hit’ll make mighty bad walkin’.”

“But we’ll get there quicker,” urged Judith feverishly, and that closed the argument. Between them the Lusk girls had succeeded in lighting the old lantern; by its illumination the party climbed the rail fence, and struggled for some distance across the loose hillocks of ploughed ground.

“Hit wouldn’t make such awful walkin’ if it had been drug,” Cliantha murmured. In the mountains they hitch a horse to a log or a large piece of brush and, dragging this over the ploughed ground, make shift to smooth it without a harrow.

They had hobbled about one third of the toilsome way when there came a rush of galloping hoofs, the girls had barely time to crouch and cry out, Speaker barked loud, and suddenly half a dozen young calves ran almost into them.

“Oh landy!” cried Pendrilla. “Ef them thar calves ain’t broke the fence again! Grandpap will be so mad—and we don’t darst to tell him that we know of it.”

“Come on,” urged Judith. “We’ve got to get over there.”

But it was found when they would have moved forward that they could not shake off their unwelcome escort. The calves had been tended occasionally in the dusk by a man with a lantern, and they hailed this one as a beacon of hope. Finally even Judith, desperately impatient to be gone, agreed that they would have to turn back and put the meddlesome creatures into their pasture and lay up the fence before they could make any progress.

“Hit’ll save time,” she commented briefly, as though time were the only thing worth considering now.

At last, one after the other, they climbed the fence at the side of the Bonbright place. The air was soft, heavy with coming rain. Up through the weed-grown yard they went, greeted and beckoned by the odours of Mary Bonbright’s garden, thyme and southernwood, herbs by the path-side, clumps of brave chrysanthemums, a wandering spray or two of late-blooming honeysuckle. Judith trembled and locked her teeth together in anguish as she remembered that other night in the odorous dusk when she and Creed had stood under these trees and sought in the darkness for the bush of sweet-scented shrub.

The empty house bulked big and black before them in the gloom. She took the key from her pocket and opened the front door, Pendrilla and Cliantha clinging to her in an ecstasy of delicious terror. She stepped into the front room, struck a match, and lighted her candle. It was half-past eleven by the small nickel alarm-clock which she carried. Its busy, bustling, modern tick roused strange, incongruous echoes in the old house, and reproved their errand.

Speaker made himself at home, coming in promptly, seeking out the corner he preferred, and turning around dog-fashion before he lay down and composed himself to half-waking slumbers.

“I reckon in here will be the best place,” murmured Cliantha, seeking a candlestick from the mantel for their light. “We could set around this table.”

“It’s more better ef we-all set on the flo’,” reminded Pendrilla doubtfully. “Don’t ye ricollect? all the dumb suppers we ever hearn tell of was held thataway. Set on the flo’ and put yo’ bread and salt on the flo’ in front of you.”

“Mebbe that’s becaze they was held in desarted houses, and most generally desarted houses don’t have no tables nor chairs in ’em,” Cliantha speculated.

From the moment the lantern revealed the room to them, Judith had stood drawn back against the wall curiously rigid, her hand at her lip, her over-bright eyes going swiftly from one remembered object to another. This fleeting gaze fixed itself at last on the inner door.

“I’ll go in the other room a minute for—for something,” she whispered finally. “You gals set here. I’ll be right back. I’ve got two candles.”

She lighted the second candle, left the girls arranging the dumb supper, and stole, as though some one had called her, into that room which she had made ready for Creed’s occupancy on the night of the play-party. It had reverted to its former estate of dust and neglect. She looked about her with blank, desolate eyes which finally found upon the bed a withered brown something that held her gaze as she crept toward it—the wreath of red roses!

There it was, the pitiful little lure she had put forward to Love, the garland she had set in place to show Creed how fine a housewife she was, how grandly she would keep his home for him. The brave red roses, the bold laughing red roses, their crimson challenge was shrivelled to darkened shreds, each golden heart was a pinch of black dust; only the thorny stems remained to show what queen of blossoms had been there.

She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling passionate sobs in its white covering.

“It’s most twelve o’clock, Jude,” whimpered Cliantha.

“Hit’s come on to rain,” supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor with the three portions of bread and salt about it.

The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith, wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely about her and wept so much.

“Pendrilly an’ me has done put our pins in close to the bottom,” Cliantha explained deprecatingly. “Hit wouldn’t do any good to have Andy an’ Jeff come trompin’ in here—though I shore would love to see either or both of ’em this minute,” she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the opening.

“Push the candle back whar the draught won’t git a fair chance at it,” quavered Pendrilla. “We’re obliged to have the do’ open, or what comes cain’t git in. An’ we mustn’t ne’er a one of us say a word from now on, or hit’ll break the charm.”

Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a passionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and the three waited with pale faces.

The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads, and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head, cocked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath.

“What’s that?” gasped Cliantha. “Didn’t you-all hear somethin’?”

Judith was staring at the candle flame and made no reply. Her big dark eyes had the look of one self-hypnotised.

“Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn’t to talk at a dumb supper—but I thort I hearn somebody walkin’ out thar in the rain!” chattered Pendrilla.

The old house creaked and groaned in the rising autumn storm, as old houses do. The rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping. The wind stripped dry leaves from the bough, or scooped them up out of the hollows where they lay, and carried them across the window, or drove them along the porch, in a gliding, whispering flight that was infinitely eerie.

In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They saw that she was not with them. Her gaze was on the pin in the candle. Back over her heart swept the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She could see him stand talking to her, the lifted face, the blue eyes—should she ever see them again?

Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the tallow melted swiftly on one side, and Judith’s pin fell to the floor.

“Hit’s a-comin’!” hissed Cliantha frantically.

“Oh, Lord! I wish ’t we hadn’t—” Pendrilla moaned.

The dog uttered a protesting sound between a growl and a yelp. He raised on his forelegs, and the hair of his head and neck bristled.

Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the walk. It halted at the half-open door. That door was flung back, and in the square of dripping darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death white, his eyes wide and fixed, the rain gemming his uncovered yellow hair.

A moment he stood so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and was in the room with them.

“Jude—Jude!” shrieked Cliantha. “Run! Come on, Pendrilly!”

Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward her in the darkness. It clasped hers; the arm went around her; she raised her face, and the cold lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones.

For an instant she had no thought but that Creed had returned from the dead to claim her—and she was willing to go. Then she was aware of a swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them, and the patter of the hound’s feet following. Slowly the newcomer’s weight sagged against her; he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her down in his fall.

“Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!” she cried as she crouched there, clinging to the prostrate form. “Don’t leave me—it’s Creed himself. You got to he’p me!”

But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper and rustle of the storm.

She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, passing a light, tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man.

“Creed,” she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or response.

“Creed,” raising her voice. “O my God! Creed, darlin’ cain’t you hear me? It’s me. It’s Jude—poor Jude that loves you so—cain’t you answer her?”

There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it, it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the corner. No—she couldn’t lift him to lay him there; but she ran and brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him softly in the other.

When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run—he might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged, toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried upon him.

“Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God’s sake get up quick and help me. Creed Bonbright’s come home to his house, and I think he’s dead or dyin’ over there.”

“Uh—huh!” said the old man as he straightened up after a long examination of Creed. “I thort so. He’s got a case o’ walkin’ typhoid, an’ looks like he’s been on his feet with it till hit’s plumb wore him out.”

He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the chest.

“Walkin’ typhoid,” he repeated. “I’ve met up with some several in my lifetime. Cur’ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he’s been puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit’s ended up in this here spell of fever.”

“Will he die, Uncle Jep?” whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle’s countenance. “What must we do for him?”

“N-no—I reckon he has a chance,” hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at her white, miserable face, “an’ ef he has, hit’s to git him away from here an’ into bed right. Lord, I wish ’t the boys had been home to he’p us out. Well, we’ll have to do the best we can.”

As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look of acute anxiety, the old man’s eye was brighter, his step was freer, his head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble came.

Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith’s lap, for the journey home.

“You mind now, Judy,” he admonished, almost sternly, “ef he comes to hisse’f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don’t you set to cryin’—don’t you make no fuss. ’Tain’t every gal I’d trust thisaway. Nothin’ worse for a sick man than to get him excited.” He took the lines and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.

But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front room that was given to any guest of honour.

Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.

“Yo’ uncle sont fer me,” the old woman said. “He ’lowed he needed yo’ he’p takin’ keer o’ Bonbright.”

Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with a bursting heart.

Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked her longing with a semblance of her lover’s return!

There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff came awkwardly in, and while they all stood looking, Creed’s eyes opened suddenly upon them. Andy put out a hand swiftly.

“I’m mighty sorry for—for all that chanced,” he said huskily.

“So ’m I,” Jeff instantly seconded him.

Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled drawing of the brows; then the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, and his hand that lay on the covers moved weakly toward theirs.

“It’s all right,” he said, scarcely above a whisper—the first words he had uttered. “I told—Aunt Nancy—you were good—boys—” he faltered to a hesitating close, his eyelids drooped over the tired eyes; but they flashed open once more with a smile that included Judith and her uncle standing back of the two.

“You’re all—mighty—good—to me,” said Creed Bonbright. And again he sank into that lethargic sleep.

As the day advanced came the visitors that are the torment of a sick-room in the country. It would scarcely have been thought that a bare land like that could produce so many. Finally Judith went to her uncle and begged that Creed be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey set out food in the other room and entertain those who came, without promising that they should see the sick man.

“Uh—huh,” agreed Jephthah, understandingly, “I reckon yo’ about right, Jude. Creed’s obliged to lay there like a baby an’ sleep ef he’s to have any chance for his life. I don’t want to fall out with the neighbours, but we’ll see if we cain’t make out with less visitin’.”

But this prohibition was not supposed to apply to Iley Turrentine, a member of the family. About eight o’clock that morning, having then for the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin, she came hurrying across the slope with the baby on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen that temper of hers, and here was a situation where virtue itself cried to arms. She was eager to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind.

“You cain’t go in unless’n you’ll promise to be plumb quiet—not to open yo’ mouth,” Judith told her sharply. “Uncle Jep ain’t here right now—but that’s what he said.”

“Don’t Bonbright know folks? Cain’t a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen his head?” demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.

“He knew some of us a while ago,” admitted Judith, “but mostly he doesn’t notice nothing—jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we mustn’t let him be talked to nor werried.”

The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.

Judith followed her out.

“What’s the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed Bonbright—what you cryin’ about?” she asked.

“Hit’s—Huldy,” choked the sister. “I reckon you thort I talked mighty big about the business the last time you an’ me had speech consarnin’ hit; but the facts air that I don’t know a thing about whar she’s at, nor how she’s doin’. Judy, ef yo’ a-goin’ to take keer o’ the man, cain’t ye please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an’—an’ is they wedded?”

Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question as soon as she dared.

The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well, whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed, and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep, only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.

“Ain’t no use wearin’ yourself out thataway,” her uncle used to say kindly. “That won’t do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord I had Nancy here to he’p me!”

For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy’s value in sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine—Would she be at the draw-bars ’long about sundown? He had something to tell her.

She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do finally what she had long contemplated—write to her cousin Wade. It was but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house, and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah, and write to his affectionate cousin.

Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her mysteriously to one side and say:

“Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I’m plumb wo’ out and heart-broke’ about it, Jude.”

Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from a desire on Iley’s part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah.

Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring—murmuring—murmuring to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his distress was:

“I must get to her. Where is she? It’s a long ways. Oh, I’ve got to get to her—there’s nobody else.”

Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips, Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, “I’m going home.” But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah.

And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded? Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must—must—must ask him.

The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was not slow in following it up with the necessary opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed alone, on a Wednesday night—he had come to them the preceding Tuesday. Her uncle being worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus dividing the watch with her. About eleven o’clock Creed opened his eyes and asked in what seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink. She brought it to him, and when he had drank he began speaking very softly.

“I’m glad I came back to the mountains,” he said in a weak, whispering voice. “I promised you I’d come, and I did come, Judith.”

“Yes,” answered Judith, putting down the glass and seating herself at the bedside, taking his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face with intent, questioning eyes. “You know where you are now, don’t you, Creed?”

He smiled at her.

“I’m in the front room at your house where we-all danced the night of the play-party,” he said. “I loved you that night, Judith—only I hadn’t quite found out about it.”

The statement was made with the simplicity of a child—or of a sick man. It went over Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her jealous heart must know that it was really all hers. Nerve racked as only a creature of the open can be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room, torn with the possessive passion of her earth-born temperament, she stood up suddenly and asked him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and menacing,

“Creed, whar’s Huldy?”

“I don’t know,” returned Creed tremulously. The blue eyes in their great hollows came up to her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that look of confusion which had been in them from the first.

“You’re married to her—ain’t you?” choked Judith, horrified at what she had done, loathing herself for it, yet pushed on to do more.

“Yes,” whispered Creed miserably. “Sit down by me again, Judith. Don’t be mad. What are you mad about? I forget—there was awful trouble, and somebody was shot—oh, how they all hate me!”

The fluttering moment of normal conditions was gone. The baffled, confused eyes closed; the thin hands began to fumble piteously about the covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion, while from between them flowed the old, swift stream of broken whispers.

Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of intelligence that flickered up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her from the room.

“Thar now!” he said with carefully repressed violence, lest his tones should disturb the sick man. “You’ve raised up a pretty interruption with my patient. I ’lowed I could trust you, Jude. What in the world you fussin’ with Creed about? For God’s sake, did you see him? You’ve nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn’t I tell you not to name anything to him to werry him?”

“He says he’s married Huldy,” said Judith in a strangled voice.

“Say! He’d say anything—like he is now,” retorted her uncle, exasperated. “An’ he’d shore say anything on earth that was put in his mouth. I don’t care if he’s married forty Huldy’s; what I want is for him to get well. Lord, I do wish I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool young gals with their courtin’ business and their gettin’ jealous and having to have a rippit with a sick man that don’t know what he’s talkin’ about,” he went on savagely.

But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to the cutting arraignment.

“Do you think that’s true—oh, Uncle Jep, do you reckon he didn’t mean it?” was all she said.

“I don’t see as it makes any differ,” retorted her uncle, testily. “Marryin’ Huldy Spiller ain’t no hangin’ matter—but hit’ll cost that boy his life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and all worked up.”

Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the steep little stair to her own room. That night she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to some vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped would save her from cruelty to him she loved.

The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.

As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him, and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station.

“I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I might have written to you—but I thought the best I could do was to let you alone—I’d made you trouble enough,” he ended with a wistful, half-hopeful glance at her face.

Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle, reassuring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn’t talk too much. He was here now. They didn’t need any letter. But strive as she might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah; the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information.

Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have been expected in the three days that followed—days in which Creed seemed to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she ministered at tremble with the strain to answer.

On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified smile.

“Did you meet her goin’ out?” he asked.

“Did I meet who, Creed?” inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and preparing for his breakfast. “Has there been somebody in here to see you a’ready?”

“It was only Huldah,” deprecated Creed. “You said—you asked—and she just slipped in a minute after you went out.”

Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously.

“Which way did she go?” came the sharp challenge.

“Out that door,” indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way which led directly into the yard.

Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was in sight. Heedless of the sharp wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way over toward Jim Cal’s cabin.

“I don’t see her,” she called across her shoulder. “Mebbe she’s in the house yet.”

She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside.

“No,” said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused head, “she ain’t here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon she’ll keep out of sight.”

“But she had to come to see you—her wedded husband,” accused Judith sternly.

He nodded mutely with a motion of assent. He seemed to hope that the admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the chair.

“Is she stayin’ down at Jim Cal’s?” came Judith’s next question.

“She never named it to me where she was stayin’,” returned Creed wearily. As before, Judith’s ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. “She just come—and now she’s gone.” He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith’s heart misgave her.

“Won’t you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?” she said stiffly.

“I don’t want any breakfast, thank you. I can’t eat,” returned Creed very low.

Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that he slept.

The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith’s strained nerves to the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her downstairs once more, and complained of Creed’s progress.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Look like somethin’ has went wrong here right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo’ head that Creed and Huldy was man and wife, he’s been goin’ down in his mind about as fast as his stren’th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out of yo’ head.”

“Well, they air wedded,” returned Judith passionately. “They ain’t no use to fergit it, ’caze she’s done been here—she’s down at Jim Cal’s right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to visit him.”

The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt.

“Good Lord—is that what’s ailin’ ye?” he burst out. “You might at least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy here. You know in reason it shows that Creed’s out of his head—when he tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there’s no fool in the world like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?—or run him crazy?”

Judith struggled with her tears.

“Uncle Jep,” she finally choked out without actually sobbing. “I won’t say another word—now that I know. I ain’t got nothin’ agin’ Creed Bonbright, nor his wife—why should I have?”

Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on her.

“You’re a good gal, Jude,” Jephthah said softly, “ef ye air somethin’ unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy out o’ yo’ hands someway. I’m obliged to leave Creed with ye for one short while—an’ agin’ my grain it goes to do it—an’ go fetch him a nurse that won’t take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it’s Creed’s reason I’m leavin’ with you; mebbe his life—but sartain shore his reason. I won’t be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain’t ye?”

“I’ll do the best I can, Uncle Jep,” said Judith with unexpected mildness. “An’ ef Huldy ’s here——”

“My Lord!” broke in Jephthah. “Why don’t ye go to Iley an’ set yo’ mind at rest about Huldy?”

“Hit is at rest,” returned Judith darkly. “When Creed come here, Iley was at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence that day he named Huldy visitin’ him Iley ain’t been a-nigh the place.”

The old man heaved a heavy sigh.

“Well, ye say ye’ll do yo’ best? Hit’s apt to be a good best, Jude. In two days, ef I live, I’ll be back here, an’ I’ll bring he’p.”

It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed Bonbright, she would have had a capable assistant at the nursing. Andy and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed, untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley Judith held savagely aloof.

It was on the second morning of her uncle’s absence that Dilsey Rust brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice again. As her patient’s physical strength notably increased, his appeal to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the situation began to come home to her.

She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over his shoulder.

“Howdy, Jude—you did come at last.”

“Ef yo’ goin’ to say anything to me, you’ll have to be mighty quick, Blatch,” she notified him, shivering. “I got to get right back.”

“They’s somebody new—and yet not so new—a-visitin’ in the Turkey Tracks that you’d like to know of,” he prompted coolly. “Ain’t that so?”

“Huldy,” she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones.

He nodded.

“I ’lowed you’d take an intrust in that thar business, an’ I thort as a friend you ort to be told of it,” he added virtuously.

“Where’s she at?” demanded Judith.

“Over at my house,” announced Turrentine easily, with a backward jerk of his head.

“At yo’ house!” echoed Judith; “at yo’ house! Why, hit ain’t decent.”

“Huh,” laughed Blatch. “I don’t know about decent. She was out thar takin’ the rain; she had nobody to roof her; an’ I bid her in, ’caze I’m in somewhat the same fix myse’f.”

“No one to roof her,” repeated Judith. “What’s henderin’ her from comin’ over this side the Gulch?”

“Well, seein’ the way she’s done Wade I reckon she ’lows she’d better keep away from his pap’s house. She’s at the outs with Iley—Jim Cal’s lady sont her word she needn’t never show her face thar agin. She gives it out to everybody that’ll listen at her talk that she’s skeered o’ you ’count o’ Bonbright.”

Judith studied his face with half-incredulous eyes.

“How long has she been there?” she interrogated keenly.

Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection.

“Lemme see,” he ruminated, “she come a Wednesday night. Hit was rainin’, ef you remember, an’ I hearn something outside, and it scairt me up some, fer fear it was revenuers. When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an she’s been thar ever sence.”

Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning that Creed had first announced the visit of his wife. Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through her vigorous young body with a fury of despair. As always, Blatchley had found the few and simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She even felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel. They had tricked her. They had made a fool of her. She had suffered so much. She longed to be avenged.

“Judy,” murmured Blatch softly, bending toward her but not laying a hand upon her, “you white as a piece o’ paper, an’ shakin’ from head to foot. That’s from stayin’ shet up in the house yonder nussin’ that feller Bonbright night an’ day like a hirelin’. W’y, he never did care nothin’ for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye stood betwixt him an’ danger; ye he’ped him out when he needed it wust. An’ he had it in mind to fool ye from the first. Now him and Huldy Spiller has done it. Don’t you let ’em. You show ’em what you air. I’ve got a hoss out thar, and Selim’s down in the stable. I’ll put yo’ saddle on him. Git yo’ skirt, honey. Let’s you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord’s and be wedded. Then we’ll have the laugh on these here smart folks that tries to fool people.”

He leaned toward her, all the power of the man concentrated in his gaze. Perhaps he had never wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as he now wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and the rehabilitation that a union with her would give him. Once this girl’s husband, he could curtly refuse to rent to Jephthah Turrentine, who had, he knew, no lease. He could call into question the old man’s stewardship, and even up the short, bitter score between them. He could reverse that scene when he was sent packing and told to keep his foot off the place.

“Judy,” he breathed, deeply moved by all this, “don’t ye remember when we was—befo’ ever this feller come—Why, in them days I used to think shore we’d be wedded.”

Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart, stared back into the eager eyes of the man who addressed her. Blatchley had always had some charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and his lawlessness, his license, which might have daunted a feebler woman, liberated something correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He had been the first to pay court to her, and a girl does not easily forget that.

For a moment the balance swung even. Then it bore down to Blatch’s side. She would go. Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah. The girl might be his wife, or his widow. She, Judith Barrier, would show them—she would show them. Her parted lips began to shape to a reckless yes. The word waited in her mind behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination pictured to her herself riding away beside Blatch leaving the sick man who had been cause of so many humiliations to her to die or get well. Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent in her face. His hand stole forward toward the draw-bars.

Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace thing. The picture of herself riding beside Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an awakening shock, the recollection of herself and Creed riding side by side, her arm across his shoulder, his drooping head against it. How purely happy she had been then—how innocent—how blest! What were these fires of torment that raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost to her; but even so, she could not decline from its dear memory to a mating like this. Without a word she turned and ran back to the house, never looking over her shoulder in response to the one or two cautious calls that Blatch sent after her.

Judith’s day was mercifully full of work. When Creed did not require her, Dilsey demanded help and direction, and one or two errands from outside kept her mind from sinking in upon itself. It was night-fall, Andy was lending her his awkward aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and beckoned the two of them out mysteriously.

“How’s Bonbright this evenin’, Jude? Do you reckon I could have speech with him?” he asked in a troubled tone.

Judith shook her head. Her own near approach to absolute failure in her charge that morning made her the more punctilious now.

“No.” She spoke positively. “Uncle Jep said he wasn’t to be werried about anything.”

“Why, he’s settin’ up some, ain’t he?” said the boy in surprise. “I thort he looked right peart.”

“Yes,” agreed Judith dejectedly, “he’s gettin’ his strength all right; he does look well. But you ax him questions, or name anything to him to trouble him, an’ it throws him right back. Uncle Jep says hit’s more his mind than his body now. What is it ye want from Creed? Cain’t I tend to it?”

“I don’t reckon a gal like you could he’p any,” Jeff said doubtfully. His eye wandered toward his twin. “I reckon this is men’s business. I’ve got word that Huldy Spiller—or some say Huldy Bonbright—is over at Blatch’s cabin, and he’s got her shut up.”

Judith’s heart gave a great leap as of terror; the thing was out at last—people knew it. Then that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly; what difference to her, though all the world knew it? Yet she held to her trust.

“Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain’t nigh talk to him about nothin’ like that,” she maintained. “Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin’ should be named to him to excite him.”

“Well, then,” pursued Jeff, “pappy not bein’ here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal over at Spiller’s, an’ the gal not havin’ no men folks in reach, me an’ Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact is, Blatch sent word that ef we wanted her we could come over and git her.”

“I don’t know as we do want her—I don’t know as we do,” put in Andy. “And we both promised pappy that we wouldn’t set foot on the land whilst Blatch had it rented.”

“Then ag’in,” debated Jeff—“Oh, no, buddy, we cain’t leave the gal thar. We’re plumb obliged to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow.”

Andy turned to his cousin.

“What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?”

Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at the end of a lengthened struggle, was:

“Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to think of her good name.”

Jeff nodded.

“Well, how air we goin’ to be sure that gal’s over there?” inquired Andy, still half reluctant.

“Oh, she’s there,” returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded her with startled looks, “I ain’t seen her, but she’s been on the mountain since Thursday. She’s been slippin’ over to visit—her—Creed named it to me then.”

“Well that does settle it,” Andy concluded. “Reckon Blatch has shut her up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?”

“To-night,” Jeff informed them. “Any time after ten o’clock’ll do—that was the word I got.”

“Well, that’ll be all right,” agreed Andy; “I can fix Creed up for the night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the business—not even Bonbright.”

A slow flush rose in Judith’s pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on this aspect of the case. She only said:

“Just do what you think best, and don’t name it to me again, please.” Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, “I’ve got enough to werry over—with a sick man here on my hands, an’ Uncle Jep gone.”

She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch’s part—it could profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and indeed he had never shown them any ill-will.