set up for
myself in a small way or take a position in another concern--that is, if
I can get one--my stock of popularity seems to be pretty low just now in
Farnham. I'd move away to-morrow and cut the whole gossipy, deceitful,
hypocritical lot of 'em if I wasn't afraid of closing the house and so
losing Susanna, if she should ever feel like coming back to us."

These words and the thought back of them were too much for John's
self-control. The darkness helped him and his need of comfort was
abject. Suddenly he burst out, "Oh, Louisa, for heaven's sake, give me a
little crumb of comfort, if you have any! How can you stand like a stone
all these months and see a man suffering as I have suffered, without
giving him a word?"

"You brought it on yourself," said Louisa, in self-exculpation.

"Does that make it any easier to bear?" cried John. "Don't you suppose I
remember it every hour, and curse myself the more? You know perfectly
well that I'm a different man to-day. I don't know what made me change;
it was as if something had been injected into my blood that turned me
against everything I had liked best before. I hate the sight of the men
and the women I used to go with, not because they are any worse, but
because they remind me of what I have lost. I have reached the point now
where I have got to have news of Susanna or go and shoot myself."

"That would be about the only piece of foolishness you haven't committed
already!" replied Louisa, with a biting satire that would have made any
man let go of the trigger in case he had gone so far as to begin pulling
it.

"Where is she?" John went on, without anger at her sarcasm. "Where is
she, how is she, what is she living on, is she well, is she just as
bitter as she was at first, does she ever speak of coming back?--Tell me
something, tell me anything. I will know something. I say I _will_!"

Louisa's calm demeanor began to show a little agitation, for she was not
used to the sight of emotion.

"I can't tell you where Susanna is, for I made her a solemn promise I
wouldn't unless you or Jack were in danger of some kind; but I don't
mind telling you this much, that she's well and in the safest kind of a
shelter, for she's been living from the first in a Shaker Settlement."

"Shaker Settlement!" cried John, starting up from his seat on the steps.
"What's that? I know Shaker egg-beaters and garden-seeds and
rocking-chairs and--oh, yes, I remember their religion's against