o the rear of his
house. He drew off his boots outside the kitchen door, and tiptoed to
his room. Without removing his clothing he threw himself on the bed. The
sunlight was streaming through the eastern windows when he awoke. He
stretched himself off the bed, and threw back the covers so that Miss
Pipkin would think he had slept there the night through. He went down to
the kitchen.

"Anything special to tell me this morning, Josiah?" whispered the
housekeeper as he entered. "How pale you look! Ain't been seeing ghosts,
have you? You look like one yourself."

"Maybe 'twas ghosts I see, but they looked purty tolerable real to me.
Yes, Clemmie, I've sartin been looking on things what ain't good for a
healthy man to see. One of 'em is that I'm a ruined man, and there
ain't no help for it."

"Don't talk such nonsense! Get out and fill your lungs with fresh air.
That cures the blues quicker than anything I know."

"It won't cure this fit. If it would, I'd had it cured long ago, 'cause
that's all I've been doing for a good many weeks. If I'd talked less and
done more I'd been a heap sight better off."

"I thought from the way you was staying up there last night that you was
doing something. I never heerd you come in at all."

"Maybe I wa'n't up there all that time. The fact is, Clemmie, I went
into the city last night."

"You went into New York last night? What did you do that for?"

"I went in and pulled a lawyer friend of mine out of bed for a little
confab. I don't mind telling you who it was. It was Harold Fox....
Clemmie, that feller that was here to see me about that mortgage lied to
me about the date it was due. Harold says the time is up on it next
Saturday."

"Josiah!"

"I also talked with another friend of mine who knew Jim purty well in
his palmy days, and he says what that letter of yours says is so. He
told me a lot more stuff, too."

"What? About Jim or Adoniah?"

"Both. What would you do if there wa'n't no way to save my place
excepting by ruination of the other feller?"

"You'd see him stop for you, wouldn't you? I'd not give it a second
thought, I'd just----"

"That ain't it, Clemmie. There's his darter, the sweetest little thing
that God ever made. It would kill her, and I ain't got no right to hurt
her just to save my own skin."

"You're right, Josiah."

"But what I'm to do, I don't know."

Mr. McGowan entered with an armful of wood, and as he stooped to drop it
into the box Miss Pip