can close the house, or I will, after you're
gone. I shan't be in it."

There was something inevitably foolish to Electra in the regret of an
old woman at losing the company of an old man whom she had not married
at the proper time. She found herself hoping, with some distaste, that
grandmother would forget him as soon as possible, and settle down into
the decencies of age. But Madam Fulton seemed to have gathered herself
and summoned energy for action. She sat upright now, and composed her
face into more cheerful lines. She looked at Electra, and a wicked smile
flickered out.

"I believe," said Madam Fulton, "if I have the strength, the day he
sails, I believe I'll marry Billy Stark and go along with him."

Electra looked her pain and then her purpose to ignore it.

"I have left everything in complete order, grandmother," she said. "It
will be easy to close the house. I have made my will."

"Bless me!"

"I have given you half my property. The other half I leave to the
Brotherhood."

"For heaven's sake, Electra! What do you want to act like that for?"

Electra was too enamored of that deed to keep it hidden.

"It is for a monument to Markham MacLeod," she said, from her abiding
calm. "But it is to be used by the Brotherhood. He would wish that."

Madam Fulton was regarding her, not satirically now, but in an honest
wonder.

"Electra," she said, "I glory in you."

"Grandmother!"

"I do. I can't help it. You've gone bad, just as I said you would. And
you never were so human in your life. Brava! I'm proud of you."

But Electra lifted her head a little and did not answer. Grandmother,
she knew, could hardly understand. It made her isolation the more
sacred.

"You give me courage," the old lady was saying. "Why, you put some life
into me! I don't know but I've got the strength to fly with Billy, after
all."

Electra rose. She could not listen. But at the door she turned, a new
thought burning in her.

"Grandmother," she said irrepressibly, "if you would make your will--"

"Bless you, I haven't sixpence," said the old lady gayly, "except the
tainted money from the book."

"That's what I mean." Electra came back and stood beside her. She
breathed an honest fervor. "That money, grandmother,--it is tainted, as
you say,--if you would leave that to the Brotherhood--"

Madam Fulton was on her feet, with an amazing swiftness.

"My money!" she cried. Then a gleam of humor irradiated her face, and
she ended