tch in a manner common to
it, and her eyes grew glassy. At times, Lizzie explained, she would fall
right down as stiff as a board, and they would have to put her on the
lounge till she recovered. Her sentimental reading of Jannie's present
seizure was that she was jealous of Ferdinand's wife.

Not yet, even, McGeorge confessed, did he see any connection between the
humble little Mrs. Doothnack and Mrs. Kraemer, in her fine lavender and
diamonds. He continued putting the queries almost at random to Lizzie
Tuoey, noting carelessly, as if they held nothing of the body of his
business, her replies. While the amazing fact was that, quite aside from
his subsequent credulity or any reasonable skepticism, the two presented
the most complete possible unity of causation and climax. As a story,
beyond which I have no interest, together they are admirable. They were
enveloped, too, in the consistency of mood loosely called atmosphere;
that is, all the details of their surrounding combined to color the
attentive mind with morbid shadows.

It was purely on Lizzie Tuoey's evidence that McGeorge's conversion to
such ridiculous claims rested. She was not capable of invention, he
pointed out, and continued that no one could make up details such as
that, finally, of the Rock of Ages. The irony was too biting and
inevitable. Her manner alone put what she related beyond dispute.

On the contrary, I insisted, it was just such minds as Lizzie's that
could credit in a flash of light--probably a calcium flare--unnatural
soldiers, spooks of any kind. Her simple pictorial belief readily
accepted the entire possibility of visions and wonders.

I could agree or not, he proceeded wearily; it was of small moment. The
fate waited for all men. "The fate of living," he declared, "the curse
of eternity. You can't stop. Eternity," he repeated, with an
uncontrollable shiver.

"Stepan seemed to find compensations," I reminded him.

"If you are so damned certain about the Tuoey woman," he cried, "what
have you got to say about Mrs. Kraemer's death? You can't dismiss her as
a hysterical idiot. People like her don't just die."

"A blood clot." His febrile excitement had grown into anger, and I
suppressed further doubts.

He lighted a cigarette. The preparations for Mrs. Kraemer's reception
and the sitting, he resumed, were elaborate. Mr. Meeker lubricated the
talking-machine till its disk turned without a trace of the mechanism. A
new record--it had c