any
sort. There was no gainsaying his fierce refusals, so I made him as
comfortable as I could while we waited. The end was very near. His face,
thin almost to emaciation, was flushed to a deep, feverish red, but his
lips took on a more unbending line than ever and his eyes burned like
bits of phosphorescence in the semidarkness. For an hour he lay there
motionless with only the shadow of a smile touching his lips at
intervals.

Miss Etta had returned, letting in a gust of damp air, but bringing no
definite answer from Lisbeth. Would she come? I remembered her
unyielding decision, her unflinching sincerity. The rain broke now
suddenly, and came roaring down the hill towards the creek. Outside the
branches of elms dragged, with a snapping of twigs, across the brittle
roof. A rusty stream of water crawled sizzling down the pipe of the
stove. It was hot--hot with the intolerable hotness of steam. The
patchwork quilt looked thick and unsmoothed. I reflected that it never
could look smoothed. And how their personalities bore down upon one with
a swamping sensation! Miss Etta and Grega and Mr. Lin Darton were
gathered into a corner of the room and an occasional whispering escaped
them. The oppression was terrific. I began to want Lisbeth, to long for
her to come, as she would come, like a cool blade cutting through
density. And yet--I was not sure. I found myself staring through the
black, shiny surface of the window, seeking relief in the obscuring
dark. It gave little vision, except its own distorted reflections, but I
could distinguish vaguely the outlines of the old mill with the shadowly
raft in the high branches and the smudgy round spots that I knew to be
the turkeys roosting.

A fiercer current tore at the framework of the mill-house. The water
rapped pitilessly against the pane. The brownish stream thickened, as it
made its way down the stovepipe and fell in flat puddles on the tin
plate beneath it.--_Would she come?_

"If she doesn't come now!" whimpered Miss Etta. "An awful
girl--_awful_!"

I began hoping of a sudden that she would not come. Though I craved her
presence in that insufferable room, I was afraid for her. A sort of
nameless terror had seized me that would not be dismissed. Yet what
worse thing than she had already endured could come from that bundle of
loose clothes on the bed? The figure moved uneasily under the covers and
made an indefinite motion. I could only guess at the words addressed to