he was filled with
fear--but of what, who could tell?

Mary's face underwent a marvellous change--it grew tender, wistful.

"Set, Aunt Becky," she said, compassionately, and gently pushed the
woman into a deep rocker covered over with a dirty quilt; "set and
don't be frightened. I ain't come to hurt yo'--I've come to help."

Becky seemed to shrink.

"Hit's in----" she began, but Mary silenced her.

"No hit ain't in the grave! Zalie she knows it--an' I know it!"

"Where is hit--then?" A cunning crept into Becky's cavernous eyes.
"Where is hit?"

"Aunt Becky, no one must know! You want it--that way." Inspiration
guided Mary, or was it, perhaps, that iron strain, the strong human
strain of her kind that led her true? "Zalie, she done come back; not to
look for hit, but to keep you from hit!"

The stroke told. Becky shrank farther in the chair.

"Gawd!" she moaned--"it's that lonely! An' the longin' hurts powerful
sharp."

Mary's face twitched. Did she not know?

"But hit!"--she whispered--"don't you love hit strong enough, Aunt
Becky, to let hit alone, where hit's happy, not knowing?"

There was something majestic about Mary as she kept her eyes upon the
old woman while she pleaded with her.

The past came creeping up on the two women by the ashy hearth--it gave
Becky strength; it blinded Mary. In the old woman's memory a picture
flashed--the picture that once had hung on the wall of Ridge House!

She folded her bony arms over her bosom and panted:

"Yes--I love hit--well enough!" The last hold was loosening. Then:

"It's powerful lonesome--and the cold and hunger bite cruel hard----"

"Aunt Becky, listen to me!" The woman turned her eyes to the speaker,
but her thoughts were far, far away.

"I'll come to you, Gawd hearing me; I'll ward off the cold and hunger.
I'll come day after day--if you'll leave hit--where it can't ever know."

Suddenly Becky's face grew sharp and cunning; all that was tender and
human in her faded--self-preservation rose supreme.

"I'll leave hit, Mary Allen," she cackled, "but if yo' tell that hit
ain't in the grave 'long o' Zalie all the devils o' hell will watch out
for yo' soul!"

Mary was not listening. She rose and mechanically moved about the
disordered room. Like a sleep walker she set the rickety furniture in
place; she began to gather scraps of food together--hunting, hunting in
corners and cupboards. She made some black coffee--rank and
evil-smelling it was--and