"Thanks. Fine day," the man said, and John nodded and smiled.

CHAPTER XXXIX

"I don't care whether you do or not, Liz, old girl." Jane forced a laugh that was harsh to the point of rasping. "Sometimes it looks to me like you are afraid to croak. Let the least thing get the matter with you and you are scared out of your wits; but me? La me! I've had my day, Liz. I don't want to be a she-hog—a sow. Enough is enough for Jane Holder. Huh! It used to be 'Jennie' when I was young and thinking about getting married. Later on it was 'Jen,' and now it is 'Jane'—just 'Jane.' 'Old Jane' next! Huh! if I had long to live you don't think I'd keep on here in this rotten, tattling town, do you? I've had my fill of it. You know what they all say about you and me, don't you? They say you ruined John's life, and that I was heading Dora for the dives when John stepped in out of pity and kidnapped her—took her 'way off somewhere to get her away from me and you, and—"

"Hush!" Lizzie Trott, white with fury, cried, brandishing a heavy silver-plated hair-brush in her hand and towering over Jane.

But, leaning on her sunshade, Jane only laughed recklessly and satirically. "Pull in your horns, Liz, old girl," she said. "I'm not giving you any worse medicine than I'm taking myself. Huh! I guess not! Huh! I'm only telling you what's being said in this darned town. They all say, judging from her looks, that John's wife was as decent a country girl as ever lived, and that if her father had met you the day he came loaded for bear he would have put daylight through you. As for me, they say John did my duty for me. Huh! it is a hell of a mix-up, isn't it? But I don't care. I believe I'm all in. I feel it in my bones, and I don't give a damn when I keel over. I hope I won't suffer, though. Whew! I don't like to think of that! Look how Mag Sebastian faced the music in Atlanta. When that fool shoe-drummer got married last week it was piff! bang! and Mag gave a coroner's jury a job. Huh! They all say who saw Mag in her fine casket that she looked like she was asleep. You see, they combed her red bangs down so as to hide the bullet-hole, and dressed her up nice. And flowers! Gosh! every girl on the town piled 'em in and heaped 'em over her. But Mag couldn't smell 'em. Huh! I guess not!"

"What ails you?" Lizzie asked, her lips trembling, her eyes wide with grim inquiry, her tone one of anxious appeal, rather than that of her earlier resentment.

"Huh! Nothing, Liz, old girl!" Jane replied, doggedly. "I guess I am having different thoughts from you, that's all. I think certain things all day long, no matter who I'm with—laughing, dancing, drinking, shuffling a deck, or giving taffy to a man. Huh! Maybe it is because I know something—huh! something that you don't know."

"What do you mean now?" Lizzie demanded, suspiciously.

"Never mind what I mean," was the stubborn retort, as Jane stabbed at the straw matting with the ferrule of her sunshade. "Let well enough alone, Liz Trott. If what I know makes me see sights and hear sounds in the dead of night, what good would it do to bring it onto you?"

Lizzie laid down the powder-puff she was using and bent lower over the rambling speaker.

"You do know something," she said, under her breath. "You knew it yesterday. What do you mean by deviling me this way? You had it on your mind last night while the crowd was here and after they left. They knew it, too. I remember now how they looked at one another."

"I don't know anything," Jane said, doggedly, with a cloud across her wan face, and she got up, sighing. "I know I'll go stark, staring crazy if this keeps up. Stop your tongue! Let me alone! Huh! I know what's good for you."

Therewith Jane left the room and all but staggered to her own.

"She does know something," Lizzie Trott mused, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She completed her toilet and went down to the kitchen. A negro woman was at work there preparing supper.

"Don't burn the bread again, Mandy," she said, carelessly, her mind still occupied by the conversation just ended.

"Lawsy me! you needn't bother," the portly woman sniffed. "You may res' shore dat I won't burn it atter supper to-night, fer I'm gwine ter quit yer."

"Quit us? Why?"

The woman shrugged her fat shoulders. "Beca'se Jake done say fer me to, dat's why," she muttered. "I done promised ter love en' obey at de weddin', same es him, en' he say he done laid de law down. Dis is my las' day wid you en' t'other woman. We-all's preacher been talkin' ter Jake, en' he say you is unloadin' yo' dirt on de black race, 'case no white woman will work in dis house en' clean up atter you."

"So that is it," Lizzie Trott said, unrebelliously. "Well, well, I sha'n't plead with you." And with a haughty step she turned from the room.

There was nowhere to go that evening, and it happened that no visitors came, so Lizzie felt quite lonely. Even Jane's companionship was denied her, for Jane remained in her room with the door shut. She hadn't come down to supper, having answered to the call with the remark that she was not hungry and was feeling no better.

Ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve. Lizzie stepped out into the front yard and looked up at Jane's window to see if there was a light. The room was dark, and even the blinds were drawn down.

"Something really must be wrong," Lizzie speculated, dejectedly. "She is not at herself. She is imagining things. All that chatter about knowing something that I don't know may be just a crazy notion."

At one o'clock Lizzie reluctantly undressed for bed, for she felt that she was not in the mood for sleep, and she was sure she would have one of her headaches in the morning. She was about to turn out her light when she decided that she would ask Jane how she felt. So she tiptoed to the door of Jane's room and rapped.

"Who—who—who— What is it?" came in a low, halting voice from within.

"Me, Jane," and Lizzie tried the latch, only to find, to her surprise, that the door was locked. She waited a moment and then, full of dire fancies, she shook the knob and rapped more vigorously. "Let me in, Jane," she cried. "I want to see you. I must see you!"

But the appalling thing now was that Jane still made no effort to speak or move, and Lizzie was thoroughly frightened. She beat the door with both hands and kicked it.

"Open up or I'll break in!" she cried.

There was a pause, followed by a crash on the floor within the room. Jane had stumbled over a chair and upset it. There was another unaccountable pause, then Lizzie heard Jane's hands sliding on the door, feeling their way to the lock. The key was fumbled, then slowly turned, and Lizzie pushed the door open. There in the dark, robed in her new pink-silk gown, as Lizzie afterward discovered, stood Jane. She muttered something inarticulately and stepped or reeled back toward her bed. Lizzie groped forward, wondering, fearing she knew not what. She laid hold of Jane's arm and for a moment the two stood face to face in silence. Then Jane began to mutter in slow, vacuous tones:

"You bet I had a good time. I've lived on the best. I rolled 'em high and had friends that could pay their way. I'm a sport. I was born a sport, and been a sport from the day I ran away from school till now."

"What is the matter? Why are you dressed up like this?" Lizzie had felt the silk sleeve of the gown Jane was wearing.

"Huh! You can't guess, can you?" Jane said, with a low, insinuating laugh. Lizzie said nothing. She knew where Jane's matches were and she got one and started to strike it.

"Stop! None of that!" Jane cried. "I don't want no light. Huh! I prefer darkness to light! You know where that comes from, don't you? It is from the Bible. 'Those whose deeds are evil,' you remember? Well, size me up as you like, old girl. I've had my good time. I don't want the earth. I'm no she-hog—a sow. I know what's ahead, and I take off my hat to it, that's all!"

"Sit down," Lizzie said, in the deepest dread of something, she knew not what, and she drew Jane down to the edge of the bed. Unable to formulate any further questions, she stood staring at her companion till presently she saw Jane's body drowsily inclining to one side.

"That's right, lie down," Lizzie said, and she lifted Jane's feet to the bed and put a pillow under her head. Then, unmolested, she lit the lamp on the bureau. A strange sight met her eyes and chilled her blood. In her best pink-silk gown, beaded satin slippers, and embroidered silken hose, her hair crimped and fluffy, her cheeks deeply roughed, her eyebrows blackened as for a ball, Jane lay as if asleep.

"What am I to do?" Lizzie asked herself. "She is sick and must be undressed. She is delirious. She must have fever. She ought to have a doctor, but who could I send at this time of night?"

She took Jane's wrist to test the pulse, but Jane snatched it away.

"Oh, it's you, Liz!" she said, opening her eyes in a sort of inane, widening stare. "You caught me, didn't you? Well, I want it this way. When they look at me, if any of them comes, I want them to say old Jane was a sport from start to finish. The last dance is on. Mix the drinks, boys. Eat, drink, and shake the dice, for to-morrow you may not know where you are at, and nobody to pay the bill. But keep the other thing to yourselves. I don't want to hear about it. You say it was in the papers. I didn't see it. Liz didn't see it, either, and you say she and I are in the same box. Murder? Who says it was the same as murder? I didn't intend it. I'd never have let it happen if I could have prevented it. Yes, the baby was left with me, and—and I might have raised her different, but I was a sport, full of hell and out for a good time! But, O God! I wonder what the little thing thought when the crash came. Gosh! She must have screamed! She must have choked in that awful fire! Burned to a cinder! No flowers, no sod, no nothing! Well, what's the odds? Yes, I'll let Liz find out for herself. Somebody will tell her soon enough. Lord! how a thing like that flies and spins through the air! It is everybody's business."

"I want to undress you, Jane," Lizzie said, bewildered by the ambiguous torrent of words. "Let me unhook your frock."

"No, fool, idiot, spitfire, cat!" Jane cried, angrily. "I want to be like this—just like this. Get away! Leave me alone! How long will it take?—the Lord only knows. I couldn't ask the drug-clerk."

"Well, I'll leave you, then," Lizzie said, slightly offended.

Jane made no response, and Lizzie started to leave the room. She noticed the lamp and paused. "She might get up and knock it over," she thought, and, blowing her breath down the chimney, she extinguished the flame.

She was in her room, still undressed, when she heard the gate being opened. She went to the head of the stairs and listened. There was a vigorous rap. Lizzie went down the stairs and opened the door.

A man she knew to be Doctor Brackett stood on the porch, a satchel in his hand. His horse was at the gate.

"I'm just in from Atlanta," he explained, hurriedly. "I have a new clerk at my store, and in looking over his prescriptions I saw that he had sold Miss Holder quite a quantity of morphine tablets. You see, from the talk that is going on in town I was afraid she might have taken an—an overdose—you know what I mean?"

"I think something is wrong with her," Lizzie cried, aghast. "Hurry! Come! I'll light her lamp!"

Lizzie fairly ran up the steps and into Jane's room. She struck a match and lighted the lamp. The doctor followed her and bent over the sleeping woman. He opened her dress, quickly cut her corset-laces, and made an examination. Then, standing up, he turned to the bureau and began to search the littered top of it.

"Oh, here we are!" he exclaimed, in relief, as he picked up a vial containing morphine tablets and shook them between him and the light. "She's had a close shave. She thought she was taking enough."

"You mean that she—"

"Oh yes." The doctor put the vial into his pocket. "It is a plain case. Her mind is out of order. She actually—so my clerk heard to-night—went to the undertaker's and asked him the prices of various costly caskets. The undertaker thought she was referring to her recent bad news. She will come out of this sleep all right. But the truth is she can't recover. It is only a question of a week or two now. In fact, she won't get up from this. She hasn't the vitality. She has literally burned herself out and been living on her energies and nerves. She couldn't stand the shock of that sad calamity. I am sorry for you, too, Mrs. Trott. John was a fine boy. Now leave her just as she is. She will be easier handled in the morning. She is in no immediate danger."

The doctor took up his satchel and started away. In the darkened corridor Lizzie overtook him just as he had reached the head of the stairs.

"You said Jane had bad news, doctor," she began, falteringly, dreading revelations to come. "Do you mean about—about John taking her niece away?"

"Yes, Mrs. Trott, and the other—the deaths of the two in that awful wreck."

"Death? Wreck?" Lizzie leaned breathlessly against the wall. "What wreck—whose death?"

"Oh, oh, is it possible that you haven't heard?" And, standing in the slender shaft of light from Jane's partly closed door, the doctor awkwardly explained. Lizzie listened, as he thought, calmly enough. He couldn't read her face, for she kept it averted in the shadow.

"I understand it all now," she said, after a little pause. "Oh, oh, so that's it! That's what Jane meant."

She went with the doctor to the door, said good night, and locked the door after him. She stood in the dismal silence of the dark hall and heard his horse trotting down the street. She started to her room, sliding her hand on the smooth balustrade. Her room gained, she stood in the center of it as purposeless and dazed as a sleeper waking in strange surroundings. She felt for a chair and sank into it.

"John dead!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Why, why, it can't be—and yet why not, if they all say so? John dead, Dora dead, Jane dying, and I—and I left here all alone by myself!"

She undressed in the dark, vaguely dreading the light as if it might somehow stab her anew. She reclined on the bed. For hours she lay awake. She tried to cry, but could not summon tears to her eyes. She would have been afraid of Jane's staggering insanely about the house had the doctor not assured her that she would not stir till morning. Jane was not a ghost, but she was a would-be suicide, and that was quite as gruesome to think about.

CHAPTER XL

After breakfast there was nothing to do, and Lizzie sat first in the parlor, then in the dining-room, and again on the porch. She went in to see Jane and found her still asleep. In the yellow light of day there was something weirdly uncouth in the pink-robed form, the patchwork of paint, powder, and death-tints of the face which had once been attractive and care-free. The doctor was coming again and Lizzie told herself that Jane must be undressed and put to bed properly, and yet she shrank from going about it, for she dreaded Jane's temper. But it had to be done, so, getting out a nightgown from a bureau drawer, she proceeded to wake the sleeper. It was difficult, but Jane finally opened her eyes, and, only half conscious, she submitted, falling asleep again as soon as Lizzie stopped handling her. Mandy came up the stairs and looked in at the door. She approached the bed and stared down disapprovingly at the frail, limp form.

"Dat's er dyin' 'ooman," she said, superstitiously. "She got de mark of it all over 'er."

Lizzie, in a chair at the foot of the bed, nodded, but said nothing.

The doctor came, made an examination, and motioned Lizzie and the servant to follow him from the chamber. "She is sinking pretty fast," he said. "She may come to her senses before the end, and she may not. I'm doing no good and shall not call again."

The white woman and the black, standing side by side in the corridor, watched him descend the stairs.

"Well, well, what could she expect?" Mandy muttered, as she started for the kitchen. "She made 'er bed, Jake say, en' now she's on it. Well, well, I don't judge nobody—dat's de Lawd's job, not mine—but I'm sorry for 'er—so I am. I'm sorry fer 'er, en'—en' fer you, too, Mis' Trott."

There were no male visitors that day. The news of John's and Dora's deaths somehow kept men away. However, the report that Jane had attempted to kill herself and was about to die reached some of her female associates, and in their perfumed finery and with mincing, high-heeled steps they rustled in. With faces as vapid as faces of wax they perched around Jane's bed like birds in tinsel plumage, ready for instant flight. They knew that the end of one of their coterie was near, and yet they chatted in low tones of things pertaining to their walk of life and this and that off-color gossip. Now and then a smile slipped its frail fetters and died of its own rebuke.

Under various and startled excuses they declined Lizzie's hint that they come back after dark and sit the night through at the dying woman's bedside. So that night, when Mandy left for her home, saying that she could not possibly stay away from Jake and the children, Lizzie found herself quite marooned with Jane and certain memories which she could not combat.

Why she did it she could not have explained, but she took her lamp and went to John's old room at the end of the house, and stood looking about. Tacked to the wall were some diagrams he had drawn; and on the dusty table lay a coverless arithmetic, a dog-eared algebra, an English grammar, and pen, ink, paper, stubs of pencils, a worn tape-line, and on the wall hung a soiled shirt, a discarded gray vest, a pair of old trousers, and a dented derby hat. Lizzie lowered the lamp to the table and sat down in the only chair in the room. A pair of John's old shoes peeped out at her from beneath the narrow bed. Lizzie sat there for an hour or more. She was tearless, but a vast reservoir of tears seemed backed up within her, and certain inward dams threatened to burst. John no longer seemed the gawky workman of his later days, but the neglected though attractive child who used to romp noisily through the house and stare at her and her friends with such innocent and prattling blandness. And he was dead, actually dead! Lizzie mused thus for a while, and then began to grow angry. People were saying that she had caused his death by separating his wife from him and driving him away. They were saying, too, those meddlesome fools! that he had tried to rescue a child from sheer contamination by her, and had lost his life in the attempt. John's father, if he were alive—but she mustn't think of him. No, she had given that over long ago. But to-night John's father, as a discarnate entity of some sort, seemed to haunt the dead silence of the house to which he had brought her so hopefully. The all-pervading gloom seemed to palpitate with his demand for the restoration to life and happiness of his son. Was she losing her mind? Lizzie wondered. She never could have imagined that such an hour as this could arrive for her, an hour so fraught with twinges, pangs, and thrusts the like of which had been alien to her experience. She could bear it no longer, and she took her lamp and went back to her own room. She listened attentively to detect any sound that might come from Jane's chamber. Was it a voice, a low, querulous voice? Yes, it must be; and laggingly she went to respond to it.

Jane lay with her eyes wide open in almost infantile inquiry.

"I see it didn't work," she smiled, wanly. "I didn't take enough, eh? Well, well, it doesn't matter, Liz. I'd rather go the regular, old-fashioned way, after all. I seem to have slept off that other feeling. I'm not afraid now—no, no, not a bit! I've had my day, old pal, and the richest women of the land haven't had a better time. I dreamt that all the girls were here—Ide, and Lou, High-fling Em, and—"

"They were here this afternoon," Lizzie fished from her turgid consciousness, "but they left. They were sorry."

"Oh, I know, but not one of the bunch thought for one minute that it would come to them, too, and that's the joke of it! Selfish fools—nasty, sly, and catty even over a corpse. They sent Mag Sebastian flowers, but it was after Mag was out of the game. Huh! I guess I know 'em, Liz, and so do you. Shucks! you won't cry when I'm carted off—not on your life! But there is one thing, yes, one thing, Liz, and it lies just between you and me. I don't know why it hangs on to me so tight. Huh!" Jane forced a rasping, throaty laugh that fairly snarled with insincerity. "I mean—I mean—oh, hell! you know what I mean!"

"I—I don't think I do," Lizzie faltered, trying to meet Jane's unwavering stare.

"Oh, come off, come off!" Jane sniffed. "'Jurors, look on the prisoner—prisoner, look on the jurors'! You know what I'm talking about. I heard the doctor telling you last night about John and Dora. Listen. I've had my fun and the good things of life, but did my fun—you know what I mean—did my fun come between me and—well—my duty to the kid's mother? And more than that—more than that—did my fun and yours, Liz, drive a young wife from a happy home with a hanging head, cause a fine boy and a helpless little girl to run from us as from smallpox into roasting flames—"

"Hush, hush!" Lizzie gasped, and she rose to her feet, quivering and pallid.

"Oh, well, never mind, Liz!" Jane sighed wearily. "You can't face that point any better than I can, but you hold a better hand than I do—for you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and my hair fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do."

Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott. About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy. Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty, middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the sawhorse in the wood-yard.

"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she comin' on?"

"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and see her?"

Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious and resigned look on her swarthy face.

"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis' Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er—no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on 'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en' all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so."

"Very well, very well," Lizzie consented. "And have him see the undertaker, too, please."

CHAPTER XLI

"Yes, because you are the only one she talks about wanting to see. She loves you, and intimated that she would like to go out to your house for a few days. I am sure it will do her good, and I thought maybe you wouldn't mind—"

"Oh, I should love it above all things!" The girl grasped Mrs. Whaley's hands and wrung them eagerly. "I have the buggy. I could take her right back with me."

"Then you ought to do it while her pa is away," Mrs. Whaley said, her beetling brows lowered. "He is in the country to-day. If he was here he might raise a row, but he won't be apt to object when it is already done. I think she ought to go. I hate to say it, but this is no place for her right now. I'm afraid sometimes that her pa's got some trouble of the brain. 'Softening,' some call it. He is not like he was. He wakes up in the dead of night and comes stumbling over things to my bed to talk all this over, and he would go to Tilly's bed, too, if I'd let him. He is even suspicious of me—says I dispute his Bible views behind his back, or when he is expounding them to somebody before me. But I don't. I'm sick and tired of it all. I am coming to see that he is wrong, because religion is intended to help, not ruin folks, and between you and me, Martha Jane, every bit of trouble me and him ever had came out of his peculiar way of looking at Scripture. La me! wouldn't it have been better to have left Tilly down there with the man she picked out than to—to— Well, you know what I mean? You see how it ended."

With moist eyes, Martha Jane nodded. "May I see her now?" she asked, her lips twitching.

"Yes, go right up. She will be glad to see you."

Two days later Joel Eperson and Tilly sat on the veranda of Joel's farm-house. "Martha Jane said you had something to say to me," he said, gravely. "I hope it is something that I can do to help you, Tilly. God knows I want to do so."

"Yes, I want you to help me," Tilly said, lifting her sad eyes to his face, "but first I must make a confession. Joel, I deliberately planned this visit to Martha Jane for a purpose. There was something to be done that would have been impossible at home, owing to my father's close watching over me."

"I see— I see, and I am ready for anything," Joel declared, fervently.

Tilly was silent for several minutes, her glance on the lap of her black dress, and the black-bordered handkerchief which she held balled in her little hand.

"Of course," Joel began, considerately, "if you don't feel like saying any more at present, why, I—"

"It is not that," Tilly broke in; "but, oh, Joel, I am afraid that you may not agree with me, and this is a thing that lies very heavily on my sense of duty. There is something that I must do right away. Joel, I must go to Ridgeville for a day or so."

"To Ridgeville!" He stared blankly, after his astounded ejaculation.

"Yes, Joel. I want to visit our little house again and get some things I left— No, that isn't it. Why am I not telling the truth? I want to get anything—anything that John may have left. You see"—filling up and sobbing now—"I haven't a single thing with me that was actually his."

"I understand." Joel raised his tortured eyes from her sweet, grief-swept face and let them rove unguided over his fields of cotton and ripening corn which lay along the red-clay road sloping mountainward. "I see, and you think that I—"

"It is like this, Joel." Tilly was controlling her sobs now and bending anxiously toward him. "So many people know me at Cranston that if I took the train there it would cause talk of an unpleasant sort. Father would know I was going and he would not allow it. But Bellewood, two miles from here, you know, is a station, and if you would put me on there at eight o'clock in the morning no one at home would know anything about it."

Joel's honest and worshipful eyes crept back to her face. "I see," he said, slowly, "and your people would think that you were here under the protection of my sister, my mother, and myself."

"Yes, Joel, but I have mentioned it to your mother and sister and they see it as I do. They are women and understand. They were afraid, however, that you would not want to do it, and so I came to you. You must help me, Joel. As I see it, a deception of this sort is not wrong, for it springs from a right motive."

Joel was deeply perturbed. His whole mental and spiritual being rose and fell on the billows of indecision. Finally he asked: "Is it just to visit the house and get some things? Is that all, Tilly?"

He saw her glance waver and sink to her lap. She took a deep, resolute breath. "What is the use?" she said, tremulously. "I cannot lie to you, Joel. You will either help me, knowing fully what I'm going for, or not at all. Joel, I want to see John's mother."

"His mother?" The plain man started and recoiled. "But why, oh, why, Tilly?"

She put her handkerchief to her writhing lips; she gulped and, with lowered eyes, half sobbed: "Because she is John's mother—that's all, Joel. I want to see, close at hand, the woman who gave my husband birth and nursed him when he was a baby. I saw her once when she sat behind me at a show. She looked at me and I looked at her. Somehow I think I'd know her better than any one else. Joel, she has lost her child and I have lost my husband. They have gone from us forever and ever. No power on earth ought to keep us two apart. No one else can tell how I feel or how she feels. I don't think she is as bad as people say, not deep down in her heart, anyway. She's done wrong, but so have all of us. Joel, you can help me or not, as you think best, but if you don't take me to that train I shall walk to it alone. I know my duty before God, and I shall do it. Joel, Joel, Joel"—she was speaking slowly, as if to formulate into words thoughts which lay deep beneath the surface of her torn being—"Joel, God is holding me accountable, in a way. Joel, if I had not deserted John he would have been alive to-day. Something would have arisen to have prevented my father from shooting him. I thought I was acting for the best, but I was excited and terrified. Do you think, feeling as I do, that I care what a few people here or at Ridgeville think about me?"

Joel rose to his feet. He was wearing his working-clothes. His coarse shoes and the hat in his gaunt hand were covered with dust from the barn which he had been cleaning in preparation for the winter's storage of grain. His rough shirt was open at the neck, the muscles of which were drawn taut. His brow and hands were beaded with sweat. He stood staring mountainward for a moment, rocked between two impulses. Presently he turned to her.

"It would be a question between old-fashioned men of honor," he said, "whether a gentleman could act as you ask me to act while you are intrusted to his protection, but you are now speaking of things, Tilly, which men have no right to decide upon. No bishop, no cardinal should refuse to go to a woman in distress, and neither should I!—neither should you. And so, if you feel that it is your duty to the memory of your husband to do this thing, I shall help you."

"Thank you, Joel." Tilly sobbed aloud. "I knew you would not desert me."

"And when do you want to go?" he inquired.

"In the morning, Joel."

"Then I shall be ready to take you," he said, turning away.

He had to clean and oil the wheels of his road-wagon, and he went to the barn-yard and set to work.

CHAPTER XLII

The hearse, the black-plumed horses, and the undertaker's men went away. Jake and Mandy again fell in behind Lizzie and they walked down the hill to the deserted house.

"I cooked enough fer yo' supper, Mis' Trott," Mandy said at the gate. "Jake say dat I mustn't come back ter you any mo'."

"Very well, Mandy," Lizzie said, wearily. "Good-by."

"Good-by, Mis' Trott. Me 'n' Jake bofe sorry fer you."

"Yas'm, we is," Jake intoned, doffing his hat and sliding his flat feet backward.

The interior of the house was still and shadowy. Lizzie sat down in that best dark dress of hers in the parlor. She was beginning to pity herself, for it was all so very, very terrible. How could she go on living there? And yet, whither was she to go? She rose. She started up the stairs with the strange intention of again visiting John's old room, but in the hall she stopped. "How silly!" she thought. "What am I going up there for?" The slanting rays of the lowering sun fell through the narrow side-lights of the door and lay on the floor at her feet. She shuddered. It would soon be night again and how could she pass the dark hours?—for something told her that she would not sleep soundly. She had never felt less like sleeping, though she had not lost consciousness for two days and two nights. Then a self-protective idea entered her confused reflections, and she acted on it. She found among her belongings a piece of broad black ribbon, and, forming a bow and streamers of it, she hung it on the front door-knob, together with a card on which she had written, "Not at home." That would keep people away—her friends and Jane's—and she was in no mood to entertain any one. The ribbon and card would speak of John, of Dora, of Jane, and the boldest would respect their significance.

In her own room Lizzie changed her dress. She felt like it, and she put on her oldest and plainest gown. She drew off her rings and bracelets and dropped them into a drawer. Something psychological was happening to her which she could not have analyzed had she had far more occult knowledge than she possessed. She remembered that her mother had dressed plainly in those far-off days which now seemed so sweet and restful, and somehow she wanted to be like her mother.

It was sundown. It would soon be dark, she told herself, with a cool shudder and a little groan of despair. Suddenly she heard a sound as of the gate being closed. Then there was a light step on the porch, followed by a low rap on the door. Lizzie crept down the stairs, not knowing whether she should open the door or not. There was another rap, a timid one, it seemed to Lizzie, who now stood hesitating in the hall close to the door. There was a brief silence, then a low, awed voice was heard calling:

"Mrs. Trott! Oh, Mrs. Trott! May I see you for a moment?"

Lizzie fired up with a touch of her old irascibility, and, putting her lips to the keyhole, she cried out, sharply:

"There is no one at home! Can't you read the card on the door?"

"Yes, Mrs. Trott," came back after a pause, "but I've come a long way to see you. Don't you know me? I'm Tilly, John's wife."

"John's wife!" Lizzie gasped under her breath. "John's wife!" Then with fumbling fingers she unlocked and opened the door and stood staring at the quaint little visitor whose black costume was covered with the dust of travel and who seemed quite frightened under the ordeal upon her.

"Oh, Mrs. Trott," Tilly went on, in a pleading tone, "do forgive me! I know I have no right to intrude on you like this, but I simply couldn't stay away any longer. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are alone and in trouble and I want to help you!"

"Want to help me—you want to help me?" Lizzie stammered, taking Tilly's outstretched hand and leading her into the parlor. "Of course, of course you are welcome, but you mustn't stand there. Some one passing might see you. You say—you say that you want to see me?"

"Yes, you are his mother— I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs. Trott, what are we to do—how can we bear it?"

Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her voice.

"Why did you come here?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come here?"

"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother—actually his mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him? If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a coward—but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!"

"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my child. I am the one. It's just me, child—just me and no one else. I spoiled his life and yours. I know it—I know it. You ought to hate me, as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if people knew you were here they would—would—"

"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding them there. "I love you—I love you even more—yes, more than I do my own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you—live with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and unhappy as you are now."

As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home—you must go back to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof—"

"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people— I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me—yes, that is the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here, as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else."

They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly, perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work there at night."

Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly.

"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset, unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will make you hate me."

"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her own hand. "I can go alone—in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind."

Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition."

"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below, she went up the stairs.

CHAPTER XLIII

"I know what you mean, but it doesn't matter," Tilly insisted. "I want to stay to-night, for I must go back to-morrow. Don't refuse me—please, please don't! I want to sleep there and I want to get up in the morning and cook your breakfast and make your coffee for you. Please, please let me."

Lizzie lowered her head. Her features were in the shadow. She was very silent. Then Tilly felt some tears falling on her hands, and with her black-bordered handkerchief she wiped Lizzie's wet cheeks and drew her head down to her shoulder. Suddenly, as if ashamed of her emotion, Lizzie rose, went to the front door and stood there in silence, looking out.

"How could I let her do it?" she reflected. "If it got out she would be stamped as I am by the public. No, it won't do—it won't do; and yet, and yet, the dear, sweet child—"

She turned back to Tilly and sat down. "I don't know what to do," she faltered. "You are upset now with grief, and are willing to do things that later on you may be sorry for. Go back to the cottage and stay there. It will be best."

"No, Mrs. Trott—mother, I'm going to call you mother. I shall not desert you to-night. From the cottage I saw the hearse come here this afternoon and a man told me what it meant. This is your first night alone and I must be with you."

In silence Lizzie acquiesced. Remembering that Mandy had left supper prepared, she went to the kitchen, lighted a lamp, and began putting the food on the table. Tilly joined her, helping at this and that with swift, deft hands. Presently they sat down opposite each other. Neither ate much, though both were pretending to relish the food. The meal was almost concluded when there was a step on the porch and a vigorous rap on the door. Lizzie started and almost paled.

"Stay where you are," she said to Tilly. "I'll be back in a moment."

Tilly heard her light step to the door, then the door opened and a man's voice sounded: "Hello, Liz! What's all this? My God! old girl, I just got to town and heard at the hotel about all three, and—"

"Hush!" Tilly heard Lizzie's voice ring out. "Go away, and don't come back ever again. Do you hear me—never again?"

"But Liz, Liz! Why, old friend—"

"Go away, I tell you! I don't want you here and I won't have it! Tell all the others to stay away—every one, man and woman. I'm done, I tell you. I'm through. Go, go, I tell you! Go!"

There was a mumbled, bewildered protest which grew fainter and fainter till it ended with the clicking of the gate latch, and Lizzie, white and trembling, returned. She resumed her seat, and with unsteady hands took up her knife and fork, but made no comment on the interruption.

Supper over, they rose and put the things away. After this was done they sat talking in the parlor till nine o'clock. Then Tilly said, "Now you must go to bed, and so must I."

Lizzie got another lamp, and when she had lighted it she suddenly bethought herself of something. "You have no nightgown," she said. "Is it at the cottage?"

Tilly nodded. "Yes; I will run over for it, if you will give me a match to light the gas."

Lizzie averted her eyes, stood silent for a moment, and then said:

"No, no, you mustn't go at this time of night. Some one might see you leaving here or returning. No, no, that would never do, my child. I have a lot of clean nightgowns, but I have—" Lizzie broke off, her face flushing, her eyes falling.

"Then why don't you lend me—" Tilly had read the thought of her embarrassed hostess, delicate as it was, and yet did not know how to relieve the situation of its tension.

"Oh, I remember now!" Lizzie suddenly ejaculated in relief. "I have some that have just been bought and given to me which I've never worn. They are rather too small for me. In fact, they are about your size. Come to my room and I'll get one."

To the simple, country-bred girl Lizzie's room seemed a luxurious one in the glow of the pink-shaded lamp on the center-table. The imitation damask curtains at the windows had a costly look, and the wide bed with its silk-lined lace covering and great puffy pillows seemed a thing of royal comfort. On the air a mixture of several perfumes floated. While Tilly stood in the doorway, holding her lamp, Lizzie went to a wardrobe, pulled down a long cardboard box, and began to take out some folded garments. Suddenly she turned her back to Tilly, and with a gown of fine linen in her hands she hastily proceeded to remove the pink ribbons and bows from the neck and sleeves.

"It is too gaudy for you, with all these gewgaws on it," she awkwardly explained, when she noticed that Tilly was watching her. "It is not what you'd prefer, I'm sure; but maybe you can make it do for once. It has never been worn. It is just from the store. Here, you can see the price-tag on it."

Tilly took it, was deeply touched, and bent and kissed Lizzie on the brow. "Good night, mother," she said, simply. "Try to sleep. I can see that you need rest. We are both in a sad plight, aren't we?"

"'Mother'! she called me 'mother'!" Lizzie said to herself, as Tilly turned away. She heard the door of John's room being closed, and, peering out into the corridor, she saw that it was dark save for a thread of light beneath the shutter. Then Lizzie, with a strange sense of something new and hitherto unexperienced in her drab life, started to prepare for bed. She had removed the pins from her hair and was about to let it fall, when all at once she paused, reflected for a moment, and then wound her hair up again.

"No, no, I mustn't go to bed," she said. "That would never do. The sweet child is in my care, and nothing shall happen to shock her or prevent her from sleeping. Somebody might come—who knows? Some one too drunk to be decent or orderly."

Therewith, Lizzie got a light shawl, threw it over her shoulders, blew out her lamp, and crept down the stairs. Seating herself at an open window of the parlor, whence she could see the gate and a part of the street leading townward, she determined to remain on guard through the night.

Ten o'clock came and passed, eleven, twelve, one, and still she had no desire for sleep. She had decided how she would act if she saw any one approaching the isolated house. She would hurry out, meet the person before he reached the gate, and, if possible, quietly send him away.

At two o'clock she heard footsteps on the opposite side of the street. A man was slowly and cautiously passing, his eyes on the house. Lizzie wondered, and when she saw him pause and retrace his steps, still looking in her direction, she became even alarmed. Her anxiety increased, for when the man was opposite the gate he began slowly to cross the street. From his light, furtive steps Lizzie knew that he was trying to avoid being seen or heard.

Rising, she tiptoed from the parlor into the hall and to the door. Softly she turned the key, that Tilly might not hear, and stepped upon the porch. The sound she made was evidently heard by the man, for he paused in the middle of the street and stood still. Though the moonlight was clear enough, Lizzie failed to recognize in him any acquaintance of hers. She opened the gate and went directly to him.

"What do you want here?" she demanded, facing him sternly.

"Oh!" the man ejaculated. "Are you Mrs. Trott?"

"Yes, but what do you want?"

She thought he sighed as he courteously lifted his hat. "Mrs. Trott, I don't want to intrude," he began. "I am a friend of your son's wife from Cranston. She was in such deep distress that I and my family aided her. I helped her take a train this morning, but later decided to—"

"Oh, you are Joel Eperson, are you not?"

"Yes," was the answer.

Lizzie lowered her voice; her glance fell to the ground. "Tilly told me about you to-night—how kind you have always been to her and what a fine man you are."

Joel waved his hand disparagingly. "I am not a wise friend of hers, at any rate, Mrs. Trott," he sighed. "I ought not to have given in to her coming. But I didn't know that she—she— You see, she told me that she was going to stay at the cottage. If I had thought—"

"She insisted on staying here," Lizzie replied, plaintively apologetic. "She came before it was dark and insisted on staying. That is why I am up. Do you understand?"

Joel gravely inclined his head. "I understand," he said, "and it is fine and good of you, Mrs. Trott."

"And you were standing guard over her, too?" Lizzie went on.

Again he bowed his head. "It is a cruel world, Mrs. Trott," he said. "I hope you will pardon me for saying so, but if it should be known that Tilly stayed—"

"I know. You needn't tell me," Lizzie interrupted, sensitively. "Now listen, Mr. Eperson, you must take her home in the morning. You must take her home and prevent her from coming again. She will want to. She is not herself now. She is out of her head with grief. I love her—I love her, and I don't wonder that John did and made her his wife. I've brought all this on her and I can never undo it. You love her, too, I know it— I see it in your face and hear it in your voice. I gathered it, too, from something she let fall about you and her before she met my son. Now go to a hotel and get some rest. I am going to sit up and I'll see that no harm comes to her. I'll make her go to the cottage before it is light, and you will find her there. I promise it."

"Thank you, Mrs. Trott." Joel bowed his uncovered head and held out his hand. "If I had known that you were—were like this I should not have worried."

Lizzie pressed his hand and clung to it as if for support to her in what she next faltered out. "I am a different woman from what I was only three days ago," she declared. "Certain things have torn me to shreds. I'm bleeding inside and out. I don't know what I shall do, but I shall leave this house and bury myself from everybody I've associated with in the past. You may not think it possible, but I'll die if I don't."

Joel pressed her hand warmly; he bent his head till his eyes met hers squarely, frankly. "Then I shall help you," he said, fervently. "Not only that, but I shall not oppose Tilly in anything she wants to do in your behalf, and she says she believes in you, Mrs. Trott. I am sure that she will want to see you again, and she must be allowed to do so. I'll help her."

He left her standing in the center of the street and she slowly walked to the gate, passed through it, and crept back to her post of vigil at the window.

CHAPTER XLIV

Pilcher smiled. "I think he is worth as much to us as he is to any one else, and, as I like the fellow personally, I want to hold on to him. You can't hire a brain like his very long for nothing, and if we don't come across he may be snapped up by some one else. Carter & Langley's man asked me the other day if we had a contract with him. I lied. I told him yes, and what I want to do now is to sign up with the fellow and know where we stand. He is ambitious, and I never saw such a worker in my life. He often does as much as an ordinary man after the office closes. He works at home. He told me that he did not care for amusements, reading, or politics. He has put his little sister in school, and he warms up when he speaks of the child. Outside of his work, she seems to be the only thing he is interested in. He is always quoting something she says or telling amusing things she does. Then he laughs—he seldom smiles over anything else. He is very deep and serious. If he were not so young I'd think he had had a sad love-affair. I think he must have taken the deaths of his parents and the responsibility of the child very seriously. Well, what do you think?"

"About a contract with him? Yes, I think we ought to come to terms with him. You say he is the man we need. Why not be liberal with him?"

"I've always thought that gradual progress," Pilcher said, "was good for young men. You can spoil them easily by letting them know that you can't do without them. Still, I see your point and agree with you. How about a two years' contract at fifteen hundred a year?"

"Not enough." Reed shook his younger and more progressive head firmly. "Make it eighteen for a year, with a bonus of three per cent. on our entire net profits."

Pilcher winced and pulled his beard, but finally agreed. "You attend to the details and draw up the contract. I catch your idea of pinning down his personal interest in the work with the bonus. If we make as much money next year as this he will do well."

So it was finally arranged, and when John went home on the following Saturday night, after signing the contract, he was in good spirits. Dora was at the table with Betty and Minnie when he arrived, and he sat down with them. They were overflowing with amusement about something that had happened at school, and John sat watching Dora's animated face with deep pride and gratification. He was sure she was genuinely happy in her new environment, and he was beginning to feel that he had made no mistake in taking her from her old one. She showed by her fine color and increased weight that she was in splendid health. The new dress which she now wore and which Mrs. McGwire had selected was most becoming. Her abundant hair under constant care had grown more tractable and was always well arranged. Her little hands, once rough and soiled, had grown white, soft, and pliant. Under Betty McGwire's persistent admonitions she had left off using many incorrect and uncouth forms of speech, and, on the whole, deported herself very properly.

Why should John not be proud of her? Indeed, she was all he had in the world to care for, and he lavished the wealth of his saddened and lonely soul upon her. He loved to work in his little room at night when she and Minnie or Betty studied or read in hers, the door between being always open. Frequently they asked him questions which he could not answer—questions pertaining to history, geography, and science, and he found that he himself was learning from the answers which they finally secured from their books, teachers, and elsewhere. Sometimes he went with them to free lectures given at night by the public schools. The only place he refused to go with them was to the church and Sunday-school, but, as the grave-faced Harold always escorted them to these places, they did not need him. Sometimes the boy would speak earnestly to him of the intricate theology he was mastering, but, as John no longer combated such ideas with young or old, he always smiled indulgently and let the subject pass.

"What does it matter?" he used to ask himself. "Everybody needs a belief of some sort, and Harold's faith in snake- and whale-stories is as good as any other, if it will keep him from stealing and murdering and make him more considerate of his fellow-man. Let the boy preach. If people are willing to pay to listen to him, that is their business and his. As for me, it hit me once and sha'n't get a swipe at me again."

After dinner was over on the night following his promotion, he told the three little girls that he wanted to "celebrate" that evening and would take them to a certain theater where a children's play was being produced.

"To celebrate what?" they noisily asked him, but he kept his joyous secret to himself, and they hurried away to get ready to go out.

While he was waiting for them in the parlor, Harold came down from his room, a book under his arm, and John invited him to go along. But the boy only smiled and held out the book, which was the Life of Wesley. "I have to study this to-night," he said. "I am to be examined on the pioneers of our Church. You know we do not believe in theaters, as a rule, but I understand that this child's play has a good moral. I'm sure it won't do any great harm, and the silly things are up-stairs dancing with joy."

The children liked the play, the people, the lights, the music, and John sat feasting on their animated faces. Once, however, a pang of keen pain shot through him at the thought that he was having a pleasure that could not be shared with the little toiling woman who had once been his wife. If all had gone well, he might have brought Tilly to the great city and lavished the results of his work and ability on her. As it was, she would perhaps remain in the backwoods for the rest of her life. She would no doubt marry— Here he shuddered and tried to banish the thought from his mind.

After the play he took his little guests to an attractive café and they had some ice-cream and cakes. While they ate they chattered vivaciously about the plot and characters of the drama. Betty displayed good critical ability, and John saw from Dora's face that she was seeing her new friend in a fresh light and no doubt determining to emulate her in this, as in other things. He told himself that that quality in his foster-sister would help her enormously in acquiring the social culture which he himself had missed in his youth.

Little Minnie was becoming sleepy. Her eyelids were drooping, and John started home with them. For a while he led Minnie by the hand, and then, noting her lagging steps, he took her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. He felt her soft cheek settle down against his, and from her warm, moist breathing he knew that she was asleep. He liked the sensation caused by the limp form in his embrace. Betty and Dora walked by his side. Young as he was, he felt a sort of paternal interest in all three of them.

Reaching home, he bore the sleeping child up to her little white bed in her mother's room. Mrs. McGwire was there, hemming sheets for the house, and was deeply touched by his act.

"It was awfully kind of you," she said, and then she began to cry. "I'm a fool," she whimpered, wiping her eyes, "but you were carrying her just as her father did only a week before he died."

However, she dried her eyes quickly and hastened to disrobe Minnie, who was still asleep.

"You have been a godsend to us all, Mr. Trott," Mrs. McGwire declared. "The children worship you. Did you know it? Every night they listen for your coming, and they often go into the kitchen to inquire if you are getting exactly what you like to eat. I am telling you this because I like to have children love me, and these love you very deeply."

One day John had to go to the office of a great newspaper directory where files were kept of almost all the papers in the United States, his object being to look over the advertised offers for bids on public buildings in a certain New Jersey town. He was sent into the basement of the establishment, where he found the files arranged in compartments in shelves on both sides of a long room. An attendant handed him a catalogue of the papers with the numbered key to their locations, and he soon secured the information he desired. He was about to leave when a terrible thought took hold of him, and he ran his eye over the catalogue. Yes, there it was. The Cranston News. He went to the indicated compartment himself, took down the file it contained, and bore it to the table and seat set aside for patrons. It was a tiny, half-stereotyped weekly, and on that account its compartment held a longer file than otherwise would have been the case. He put the stack of papers on the table before him. Should he look for the thing the mere thought of which seemed to deaden his brain? He knew the time that the item would naturally appear, and with cold, fumbling fingers he drew out the issue under that date. He held it a moment unopened.

"What good would it do?" something seemed to admonish him. "Don't rasp a healing wound."

The attendant noticed his apparent indecision and approached politely. "Is there something else you want to see?" he asked.

"No, thanks; these are all," John answered, and he opened the paper. The clerk left him and he allowed his glance to sweep the columns of local happenings.

It was there. The mere head-line in bold type was sufficient: "Annulment of Young Bride's Marriage and Tragic End of Husband."

John read the crudely considerate item through, folded the sheet, and restored the file to its place. Then he started back to his office. How pitiless seemed the street scene in the garish light of the midday sun! The push-cart men, the newsboys, the hurrying throng, the rattling of the overhead trains, seemed to belong to an earthly hades. And why, he wondered, should he suffer so over a thing that he had already accepted as a fact, and partly conquered? He couldn't have answered, though a psychologist might have classed it under the head of autosuggestion, or called it a mere backward twist of a morbid imagination fed by unsubdued, subconscious longings for things the subject once possessed.