conceal it from Deems and his wife. She
came to this conclusion in this wise.

One day, in the kitchen she came upon a newly sharpened cleaver, its
edge invisibly thin and its broad, flat side gleaming in the sun. Mrs.
Lennon was by the window and from without came the sounds of Deems
chopping wood.

Her mind was filled with a sudden clearness of thought and, swinging the
cleaver in the air, she said to Mrs. Lennon:

"You know--here's how I can break away from Jim. When he reaches
out--reaches out for me, I can just cut off his hand."

Mrs. Lennon stood motionless, startled by the unexpected words. She had
thought Martha's mind free of all fears of Jim. She was brought up
sharply by this sudden speech and gesture. "Deems," she called, "Deems,
come here."

Deems had taken the cleaver hastily from Martha's hands, and that night
told his wife that Martha would have to be watched closely. He feared
that Martha was becoming deranged.

Martha had discovered that she was watched when one night she left her
room. She heard the door open and instantly she felt the hands of Mrs.
Lennon on her arm and heard a gentle, persuasive voice asking her to
return to bed.

It was the next day, in the dusk of a turn in the hallway, that Martha
once more felt the presence of Jim. If her life in the peaceful
household of her friends had brought an outward calm, a mantle of repose
and quiet, this was instantly torn up by the vision that formed before
her eyes in the half dim hallway. Instantly she was the old Martha, held
in the grasp of terror. Her face was drawn in tense, white lines, her
lips were deformed, and with trembling gaunt hands she thrust back the
apparition. Her screams, "Jim, let me be, let me be," brought Mrs.
Lennon running and called Deems from his work in the wood-shed.

They found her in a faint on the floor. They carried her to her room and
put her to bed, Mrs. Lennon speaking to her, soothing and trying to
bring her back to her former calm.

There followed a few days of rain which seemed in some way to make
Martha less uneasy and restless. Deems and his wife, seeing her silent
and apparently resting, felt that slowly the terror she had been
suffering was being washed out. Martha's attitude encouraged this
feeling. She rested in silence, attentive to the dropping of the rain
and learning once more to wear her old-time composure.

When Deems returned toward nightfall one day, it was with the news that
the incess