end, the farmer in the field was sowing his corn, Valmore was beating upon
his anvil, and John Telfer was writing notes with a flourish. He arose,
interrupting the minister's discourse. Mary Underwood had come in just as
the minister began talking and had dropped into an obscure corner near the
door leading into the street. Sam crowded past the women who stared and
the minister who frowned and the baldheaded undertaker who wrung his hands
and, dropping the note into her lap, said, oblivious of the people looking
and listening with breathless curiosity, "It is from John Telfer. Read it.
Even he, hating women as he did, is now bringing flowers to your door."

In the room a wind of whispered comments sprang up. Women, putting their
heads together and their hands before their faces, nodded toward the
school teacher, and the boy, unconscious of the sensation he had created,
went back to his chair and looked again at the floor, waiting until the
talk and the singing of songs and the parading through the streets should
be ended. Again the minister began reading from the book.

"I have become older than all of these people here," thought the youth.
"They play at life and death, and I have felt it between the fingers of my
hand."

Mary Underwood, lacking Sam's unconsciousness of the people, looked about
with burning cheeks. Seeing the women whispering and putting their heads
together, a chill of fear ran through her. Into the room had been thrust
the face of an old enemy to her--the scandal of a small town. Picking up
the note she slipped out at the door and stole away along the street. The
old maternal love for Sam had returned strengthened and ennobled by the
terror through which she had passed with him that night in the rain. Going
to her house she whistled the collie dog and set out along a country road.
At the edge of a grove of trees she stopped, sat down on a log, and read