ith poured herself a cup of coffee, and taking a piece of toast from
the oven, stood nibbling it. The crumbs fell on the not over-clean
floor.

"Why don't you go into the dining-room to eat?" Ellen demanded.

"Got out of the wrong side of the bed, didn't you?" Edith asked.
"Willy's bed, I suppose. I'm not hungry, and I always eat breakfast like
this. I wish he would hurry. We'll be late."

Ellen stared. It was her first knowledge that this girl, this painted
hussy, worked in Willy's pharmacy, and her suspicions increased. She
had a quick vision, as she had once had of Lily, of Edith in the Cameron
house; Edith reading or embroidering on the front porch while Willy's
mother slaved for her; Edith on the same porch in the evening, with all
the boys in town around her. She knew the type, the sort that set an
entire village by the ears and in the end left home and husband and ran
away with a traveling salesman.

Ellen had already got Willy married and divorced when Mrs. Boyd came in.
She carried the milk pail, but her lips were blue and she sat down in a
chair and held her hand to her heart.

"I'm that short of breath!" she gasped. "I declare I could hardly get
back."

"I'll give you some coffee, right off."

When Willy Cameron had finished his breakfast she followed him into the
parlor. His pallor was not lost on her, or his sunken eyes. He looked
badly fed, shabby, and harassed, and he bore the marks of his sleepless
night on his face. "Are you going to stay here?" she demanded.

"Why, yes, Miss Ellen."

"Your mother would break her heart if she knew the way you're living."

"I'm very comfortable. We've tried to get a ser--" He changed color
at that. In the simple life of the village at home a woman whose only
training was the town standard of good housekeeping might go into
service in the city and not lose caste. But she was never thought of as
a servant. "--help," he substituted. "But we can't get any one, and Mrs.
Boyd is delicate. It is heart trouble."

"Does that girl work where you do?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Is she engaged to you? She calls you Willy." He smiled into her eyes.

"Not a bit of it, or thinking of it."

"How do you know what she's thinking? It's all over her. It's Willy this
and Willy that--and men are such fools."

There flashed into his mind certain things that he had tried to forget;
Edith at his doorway, with that odd look in her eyes; Edith never going
to sleep until he had gone to bed;