"I'm goin' down to that lawyer's office, and--tell him." Lois turned
toward the door.

"I s'pose you know all you're goin' to do," said her mother, in a
hard voice.

"I'm going to tell the truth," returned Lois, fiercely.

"You're goin' to put your mother in State's prison."

Lois stopped. "Mother, you can't make me believe that."

"It's true, whether you believe it or not. I don't know anything
about law, but I'm sure enough of that."

Lois stood looking at her mother. "Then I'll put you there," said
she, in a cruel voice. "That's where you ought to go, mother."

She went out of the room, and shut the door hard behind her; then she
kept on through the house to the front porch, and sat down. She sat
there all the morning, huddled up against a pillar. Her mother worked
about the house; Lois could hear her now and then, and every time she
shuddered. She had a feeling that the woman in the house was not her
mother. Had she been familiar with the vampire superstition, she
might have thought of that, and had a fancy that some fiend animated
the sober, rigid body of the old New England woman with evil and
abnormal life.

At noon Lois went in and ate some dinner mechanically; then she
returned. Presently, as she sat there, a bell began tolling, and a