doctor her for nothing or let her die. But that wasn't what I
did it for."

Georgie K. turned upon him. "What on earth did you do it for, Doc?" said
he.

"Because I felt the way you have felt yourself."

"When?"

"When the woman that made those wax-flowers, and loved that little
stuffed bird in there, died."

Georgie K.'s face paled. "What's the matter, Doc?"

"Nothing, I tell you."

"What?"

"Nothing. Who said there was anything? I had to have my little joke. I
tell you, Georgie K., I've _got_ to have my little joke, just as I've
got to have my game of euchre with you and my glass of apple-jack; a man
can't be driven too far. I meant to make it right with him. He's a mean
little cuss, but I am not mean. I intended to spend a hundred on my
joke, and you got ahead of me. For God's sake, take the money, Georgie
K."

Georgie K., still with a white, shocked, inquiring face, extended his
hand and took the roll of bills which the doctor gave him.

"Come in and take something," said he, and Doctor Gordon and James
accepted. They went again into the state parlor on whose shelf were the
wax-flowers and the stuffed canary, and they partook of apple-jack.

Then Doctor Gordon and James took leave. Georgie K. gave Gordon a hearty
shake of the hand when he got into the buggy. Gordon looked at James
again with his gloomy face, as he took up the lines. "Failed in the race
again," he said. "Now we've got to hustle, for I have eight calls to
make before dinner, and it's late. I ought to change horses, but there
isn't time."

CHAPTER IV

The weeks went on, and James led the same life with practically no
variation. The sense of a mystery or mysteries about the house never
left him, and it irritated him. He was not curious; he did not in the
least care to know in what the mystery consisted, but the fact of
concealment itself was obnoxious to him. As for himself, he never
concealed anything, and when it came to mystery, he had a vague idea of
something shameful, if not criminal. Doctor Gordon's incomprehensible
changes of mood, of almost more than mood, of character even, disturbed
him. Why a man should be one hour a country buffoon, the next an
absorbed gentleman, he could not understand. And he could not understand
also why Clemency had never left the house since he had met her on the
day of his arrival. She evidently was herself angry and sulky at being
housed, but she did not attempt to resist, and whenever Mrs.