under the influence of Presbury--her mother, woman-
like, or rather, ladylike, was of kin to the helpless, flabby
things that float in the sea and attach themselves to
whatever they happen to lodge against. Her mother
wished her to go!

``At the same time,'' Mrs. Presbury went on, ``I
can't live without somebody here to stand between me
and him. I'd kill him or kill myself.''

Mildred muttered some excuse and fled from the
room, to lock herself in.

But when she came forth again to descend to dinner,
she had resolved nothing, because there was nothing to
resolve. When she was a child she leaned from the
nursery window one day and saw a stable-boy drowning
a rat that was in a big, oval, wire cage with a wooden
bottom. The boy pressed the cage slowly down in the vat
of water. The rat, in the very top of the cage, watched
the floor sink, watched the water rise. And as it watched
it uttered a strange, shrill, feeble sound which she could
still remember distinctly and terribly. It seemed to her
now that if she were to utter any sound at all, it would
be that one.



II