shold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.

"Ain't no use wearin' yourself out thataway," her uncle used to say
kindly. "That won't do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord
I had Nancy here to he'p me!"

For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy's value in
sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been
in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when
Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine--Would she be at the
draw-bars 'long about sundown? He had something to tell her.

She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do
finally what she had long contemplated--write to her cousin Wade. It was
but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house,
and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and
the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah,
and write to his affectionate cousin.

Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the
kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her
mysteriously to one side and say:

"Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I'm plumb wo' out and
heart-broke' about it, Jude."

Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from
a desire on Iley's part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious
heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that
string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as
Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah.

Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and
hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium
in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring--murmuring--murmuring
to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his
distress was:

"I must get to her. Where is she? It's a long ways. Oh, I've got to get
to her--there's nobody else."

Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips,
Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in
those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, "I'm
going home." But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah.

And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded?
Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must--must--must ask
him.

The Evil One, hav