Jim had been so proud of a few
years ago when they first came to Springtown. She wrote out the various
sums in a long column, just to look at them all together, and to feel
how little harm they could do her; and in the midst of the dull,
lifeless work, she came upon a letter which did not look like a bill. As
she drew it from the envelope, two slips of paper fell out of it, two
slips of paper which she picked up and read, with but a dazed,
bewildered attention. They were the checks she had sent to Dayton a
month ago; his own check for $250; hers for $400.

Marietta, in her humble joys and sorrows, had never known the irony of
Fate, and hence she could not understand about those checks. The meaning
of the letter was blurred as she read it. It was from Dayton. He could
not know that Jim was dead, for he said nothing of it. But if there was
any one who did not know that Jim was dead, could it be true? Her heart
gave a wild leap, and she half rose to her feet. What if she were to run
up those stairs, quickly, breathlessly? Oh, what then?

But the stillness of the closed shop, the strange half-light that came
through the drawn shades, her own black dress, recalled her from that
swift and cruel hope, and again she set herself to read the letter.

The words all seemed straight enough, if she could only make sense of
them. He had but just read her letter, being returned that morning from
the East. The letter had come the day he left town, and thinking that it
was a receipted bill, he had locked it up, unopened, in his desk. He
feared that Mrs. Jim had been anxious about the matter, and he hastened
to relieve her mind. While he apologized for his own carelessness, he
congratulated her upon her escape.

"He congratulates me, he congratulates me!" she whispered hoarsely; "O
my God!"

She did not yet comprehend the letter nor the checks which had fluttered
to the floor. It was only the last sentence that she took note of,
because of its jarring sense.

Suddenly the meaning of it all broke upon her. Those were her checks!
Ruin had evaded her! She could not prove upon it her loyalty to Jim, her
loyalty to grief. Fate had shipwrecked her, and now it was decreed that
the sun should shine and the sea subside in smiling peace. It was more
than she could bear. She flung the letter from her, and, stooping, she
picked up the checks and crushed them in her clenched hands. How dared
they come back to mock at her! How dared Fate take he