rked 'er, an' she was jest so
constructed that she liked it. Take my advice an' turn over a new leaf;
you'll have trouble if you don't."

Henley made no reply, and he found himself alone in the big room. The
lace curtains of the windows which opened like doors on the front
veranda were gently blown in by the cooling breeze, and into the white
surroundings came the grim, black-draped figure of his wife. She
advanced toward him, her hand stiffly extended. He took her cold fingers
into his and awkwardly pressed them. Her eyes rested only a moment on
him, for she was looking critically at the carpet.

"Oh, I'll never get things right!" she cried. "Look at the stable-mud on
the carpet. I've told 'em an' _told_ 'em not to come in here without
wiping their feet, but it goes in at one ear and out at another. They've
tracked it all over, and this ingrain carpet can't be cleaned. I'd shut
the room up and keep the key, but Uncle Ben always had this room open
for visitors, and I want to carry out his plans in every detail. Oh,
Alfred, I'm afraid this awful responsibility will kill me! You have no
idea of what it all is. I used to think you had enough to do, but your
affairs are simply child's play to this."

"I suppose so," he said, "but you never took hold of mine. That's why
you think this is so awful. It is on your shoulders like my business is
on mine."

She shook her head and sighed as if his remark were not worthy of
serious notice, and sat for half an hour going into all the details of
Ben Warren's last illness and his wonderful faith in her. "He simply
_would_ leave me in charge." She applied her handkerchief to her moist
eyes and choked down a sob. "I tried to get him to see that I wasn't at
all worthy, but it only made him more determined. The lawyer told me to
stop arguing, and the doctor said I was hastening his end, and so I let
him have his way. He died like a trusting child, Alfred. I held his hand
to the last."

"It was sad," Henley managed to fish out of his confused brain. "He was
a young man to go so suddenlike."

"That woman killed him, Alfred." The handkerchief was applied again,
though the voice of the speaker rang with rising indignation. "He had me
read all her letters over to him, and I followed the outrage from the
beginning to the final blow she dealt. She led him on and on, just
holding him as a certainty till another man proposed and she got what
she wanted--a home in New York. He couldn't stand