uch
about his not comin' back; all I want is to know that he could have
come. That would satisfy me. And why couldn't he let me know that much?
Bill, you lump of mud, don't you think about dyin'?"

"You're coming pretty close to my name, old lady. Yes, I think about
it, but death will have to take care of itself. I haven't the time to
worry with it just at present."

"Yes, and the first thing you know you can't worry about it."

"Then I'll be all right; won't need to worry."

She reached over and gripped his wrist. "Ah, that's it; that's just it.
How do you know that you won't need to worry? What proof have you got?
Tell me, if you've got any." She jerked him. "Tell me. Don't you see how
I'm sufferin'? If you know anythin', tell me. I want the truth. That's
all I want, the truth."

"I don't know anything, Mrs. Stuvic. I can only hope."

She turned loose his wrist and shoved herself back further from him.
"You can only hope. You mean that you're only a fool. That's what you
mean. What do you want to hope for? Why don't you find out? What's all
the smart men doin' that they don't find out? Talk to me about the world
gettin' wiser! Oh, they can invent their machines and all that, but why
don't they find out the truth?"

"Some of the wisest of them think they have found out long ago," Milford
replied. "Don't you see the churches? Somebody must believe that the
truth is known or there wouldn't be so many churches."

"Churches," she sneered, "yes, churches. But I don't believe in 'em, and
you don't neither. Same old thing all the time; believe, believe,
nothin' but believe. Well, I'm goin' home. I see you don't know any
more than I do. We're all a pack of fools."

Mitchell said that he was going her way, and she told him to come on. At
the door going out they met the Professor coming in. The old woman fell
back as if she had seen a ghost. She declared that for a moment he was
Old Lewson, just as he looked on the day when last he urged her to
accept his faith. She sat down to recover breath. The Professor assured
her that he meant no harm. Any resemblance that he might bear to the
living or the dead was wholly unintentional on his part. She told him to
shut up, that he was a fool. He acknowledged it with a bow, and said
that this fact also was wholly unintentional.

"You pretend to be so smart," she said. "Yes, but why don't you know the
truth?"

"I should know it, madam, were I to hear it."

"Oh, you get out! Y