Emily, and she at him, and they both looked at
the imperturbable monster of a woman, and on Charlie's lips the
desperate proposals to go somewhere, to do something, to get out of it,
died before he could utter them. Only mute obstinacy held him there.
Mrs. Drainger, if she could not prevent his coming, could at least hold
Emily dumb.

"It lasted some four weeks. At length--what was bound to happen--the
weakest snapped. A week went by, and Charlie did not come. Emily haunted
the porch in an ironic appearance of freedom. Mrs. Drainger, in some
subtle way, knew that she had won, that the girl was eternally hers.
Emily's face was pitifully white: she was suffering. Was it love? Or was
it her passionate hatred of the prison that held her, the guardian that
kept her helpless?

"Then, one evening, Charlie came up the street. He looked unwell, as
though the contest of wills had somehow broken him. He walked straight
to the porch where Emily sat. She rose to meet him--I think she was
trembling.

"'Good-bye,' he said, and held out his hand.

"Apparently she did not ask why he had failed her, or where he was
going, or how he came so abruptly to bid her farewell. She took his hand
for a moment, and, with the other, steadied herself against the chair,
and so they stood looking at each other. There must have been queer
lights in their eyes--desire baffled in some strange way, wounded
pride, and an eating, mortal sickness. Charlie's hand dropped, he ran
down the walk, crossed the street straight toward me so that I saw his
white face, and walked away. We never saw him again. Emily stood
watching him, perhaps hoping that he would look back. If he did there
was still a possibility. But he did not, and she heard, I suppose, the
iron gates clang to. She went abruptly into the house. An hour later I
saw her go out, and after an interval, return."

V

The story lay between us like a damp mist.

Fawcett seemed to have forgotten me, but my silence clung to him with
mute tenacity.

"What I should know," his voice rumbled on, "I don't know--that is, of
course, the scene between the two afterwards. When Emily Drainger
returned to her house that night something awful happened. What it was,
she alone now knows. But the next flash I had of their history came
three or four years later--when I had taken up my father's practice
after his death. I have said the Draingers were an inheritance; he had
been called in to see Mrs. Drainger seve