thout
resonance. "Why didn't you come?"

"Joe?" he repeated hysterically.

She drew away from him.

"You won't want to touch me again."

He pointed to the repellant bruises. She shook her head.

"He didn't hurt me much," she whispered, "because I--I killed him."

She drew her other hand from the folds of her wrapper. The revolver
dangled from her fingers. It slipped and fell to the floor. The child
stared at it with round eyes, as if he longed to pick it up.

She covered her face and shrank against the wall.

"I've killed a man----"

Through her fingers she looked at her husband fearfully. After a time
she whispered:

"Why don't you say something?"

His trembling had ceased. His lips were twisted in a grin. He, too,
wondered why he didn't say something. Because there were no words for
what was in his heart.

In a corner he arranged his overcoat as a sort of a bed for the boy.

"Won't you speak to me?" she sobbed. "I didn't mean to, but I had to.
You got to understand. I had to."

He went to the table and commenced to tap vigorously on the key. She ran
across and grasped at his arm.

"What you telling them?" she demanded wildly.

"Why, Sally!" he said. "What's the matter with you?--To send another man
now Joe is gone."

Truths emerged from his measureless relief, lending themselves to words.
He trembled again for a moment.

"If I hadn't stayed! If I'd let them smash! When all along it only
needed Joe to keep all those people from getting killed."

He sat down, caught her in his arms, drew her to his knee, and held her
close.

"You ain't going to scold?" she asked wonderingly.

He shook his head. He couldn't say any more just then; but when his
tears touched her face she seemed to understand and to be content.

So, while the boy slept, they waited together for someone to take Joe's
place.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Copyright, 1920, by The Metropolitan Magazine Company. Copyright,
1921, by Charles Wadsworth Camp.

THE PARTING GENIUS[7]

#By# HELEN COALE CREW

From _The Midland_

"_The parting genius is with sighing sent._"

#Milton's# _Hymn on the Nativity._

It was high noon, blue and hot. The little town upon the southern slope
of the hills that shut in the great plain glared white in the intense
sunlight. The beds of the brooks in the valleys that cut their way
through the hill-clefts were dry and dusty; and the sole shade visible
lay upon the orchard floors, where the thick branch