me hot tea for your mother," he ordered the boy sharply. He himself
shook Cordelia violently. "Stop such actions!" he shouted in her ears,
and shook her again. "Ain't you a church member?" he demanded; "what
be you afraid of? You ain't done nothin' wrong, have ye?"

Then Cordelia quoted Scripture in a burst of sobs and laughter.

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive
me," she cried out. "If I ain't done wrong, mebbe them that's come
before me did, and when the Evil One and the Powers of Darkness is
abroad I'm liable, I'm liable!" Then she laughed loud and long and
shrill.

"If you don't hush up," said David, but still with that white terror
and horror on his own face, "I'll bundle you out in that vacant lot
whether or no. I mean it."

Then Cordelia was quiet, after one wild roll of her eyes at him. The
colour was returning to Adrianna's cheeks; her mother was drinking hot
tea in spasmodic gulps.

"It's after midnight," she gasped, "and I don't believe they'll come
again to-night. Do you, David?"

"No, I don't," said David conclusively.

"Oh, David, we mustn't stay another night in this awful house."

"We won't. To-morrow we'll pack off bag and baggage to Townsend
Centre, if it takes all the fire department to move us," said David.

Adrianna smiled in the midst of her terror. She thought of Abel Lyons.

The next day Mr. Townsend went to the real estate agent who had sold
him the house.

"It's no use," he said, "I can't stand it. Sell the house for what you
can get. I'll give it away rather than keep it."

Then he added a few strong words as to his opinion of parties who sold
him such an establishment. But the agent pleaded innocent for the most
part.

"I'll own I suspected something wrong when the owner, who pledged me to
secrecy as to his name, told me to sell that place for what I could
get, and did not limit me. I had never heard anything, but I began to
suspect something was wrong. Then I made a few inquiries and found out
that there was a rumour in the neighbourhood that there was something
out of the usual about that vacant lot. I had wondered myself why it
wasn't built upon. There was a story about it's being undertaken once,
and the contract made, and the contractor dying; then another man took
it and one of the workmen was killed on his way to dig the cellar, and
the others struck. I didn't pay much attention to it. I never
believed much in that so