nswered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
like to leave him alone. Come and see us."

She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
East.

"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
garden awaiting dinner.

"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked--enough to
buy out a full-sized hotel."

Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
salient experiences--excepting, of course, her grapple with the
degenerate artist.

"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"

She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
of Utes if it hadn't been for him. _When in doubt ask Lucius_, was our
motto."

She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
hard to run somebody else's life--I've found that out."

And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
like a hen with a red rag on her tail--divided in his mind like. As for
Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."

They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
meeting they spoke of Alice--that is to say, Haney with invariable
politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
seems more and more despondent."

This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
dark shadow over