d!"

"Mamma, darling, please don't go over it all again. What's the use
making yourself sick? Please!"

She was well forward in her chair now, winding her dry hands one over
the other with a small rotary motion.

"I was rocking--Shila-baby in my lap--stirring on the fire black lentils
for my boy--black lentils--he--"

"Mamma!"

"My boy. Like his father before him. My--"

"Mamma, please! Selene is coming any minute now. You know how she hates
it. Don't let yourself think back, mamma. A little will-power, the
doctor says, is all you need. Think of to-morrow, mamma; maybe, if you
want, you can come down and sit in the store awhile and--"

"I was rocking. O my God, I was rocking, and--"

"Don't get to it--mamma, please! Don't rock yourself that way! You'll
get yourself dizzy. Don't, ma; don't!"

"Outside--my boy--the holler--O God, in my ears all my life! My boy--the
papers--the swords--Aylorff--Aylorff--"

"Shh-h-h--mamma--"

"It came through his heart out the back--a blade with two sides--out the
back when I opened the door--the spur in his face when he
fell--Shila--the spur in his face--the beautiful face of my boy--my
Aylorff--my husband before him--that died to make free!" And fell back,
bathed in the sweat of the terrific hiccoughing of sobs.

"Mamma, mamma--my God! What shall we do? These spells! You'll kill
yourself, darling. I'm going to take you back, dearie--ain't that
enough? I promise. I promise. You mustn't, mamma! These spells--- they
ain't good for a young girl like Selene to hear. Mamma, ain't you got
your own Shila--your own Selene? Ain't that something? Ain't it? Ain't
it?"

Large drops of sweat had come out and a state of exhaustion that swept
completely over, prostrating the huddled form in the chair.

With her arms twined about the immediately supporting form of her
daughter, her entire weight relaxed, and footsteps that dragged without
lift, one after the other, Mrs. Horowitz groped out, one hand feeling in
advance, into the gloom of a room adjoining.

"Rest! O my God, rest!"

"Yes, yes, mamma; lean on me."

"My--bed."

"Yes, yes, darling."

"Bed."

Her voice had died now to a whimper that lay on the room after she had
passed out of it.

* * *

When Selene Coblenz, with a gust that swept the room, sucking the lace
curtains back against the panes, flung open the door upon that chromatic
scene, the two jets of gas were singing softly into its silence, and,
within the nick