ouble, the doctor called it. You understand, he
doesn't pretend, himself; his heart makes his nerves pretend, as well
as I can make it out. Sure it must be dreadful to have nerves that act
that way to you. I wonder what nerves feel like, anyway."

Peggy herself was getting off the topic, through her interest in the
subject.

"But how did you find out that I was beating Marjorie?" inquired
Francis calmly, pulling her back.

She shot a furious glance at him.

"I wish you hadn't reminded me. I'd forgotten all about hating you for
your horrid ways. It was just before he came to. He thought he was
talking to you, and he said, 'You had no right to force her to do that
work, Ellison, it will kill her.'"

"And was that all?" asked Marjorie.

"Wasn't that enough? And I ask you, Marjorie Ellison, isn't it true?
Hasn't Francis forced you to come over here and do his cooking for him?
Oh, Francis, I can't understand it in you," said poor Peggy, looking up
at him appealingly. "You that were always so tender and kind with
every one, to make a poor little thing like Marjorie work at cooking
and cleaning for great rough men."

Francis had colored up while she spoke. One hand, behind his back, was
clenching and unclenching nervously. He was fronting the two girls,
but turned a little away from Marjorie and toward Peggy, so Marjorie
could see it. Aside, from that he was perfectly quiet, and so far as
any one could see, entirely unmoved. Only Marjorie knew he was not
unmoved. That dark, thin, clenching hand--she had seen it before,
restless and betraying, and she knew it meant that Francis was angry or
unhappy. She felt curiously out of it all. She had made up her mind
once and for all to go through with her penance, if one could call it
that. Her mind was so unsettled and hard to make up that, once made up
on this particular point, she felt it would be more trouble to stop
than to go on. She leaned a little back against Peggy's guarding arm,
and let the discussion flow on by her.

"Marjorie is free to go at any time; she knows that," he said.

Marjorie looked at him full. She said nothing whatever. But Peggy's
Irish wit jumped at the right solution.

"Yes, free to go, no doubt, but with what kind of a string to it?" she
demanded triumphantly. "I'll wager it's like the way mother makes me
free of things. 'Oh, sure ye can smoke them little cigarette things if
ye like--_but_ if ye do it's out of my door ye'll