“How is your—­how is Mrs. Day?”

“Mighty puny this mornin’—­Becky is.”

The girl slipped into the dark room.  On a disordered, pillowless bed lay a white face with eyes closed and mouth slightly open.  Near the bed was a low wood fire.  On the hearth were several thick cups filled with herbs and heavy fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky’s “man” was a teamster.  With a few touches of the girl’s quick hands, the covers of the bed were smooth, and the woman’s eyes rested on the girl’s own cloak.  With her own handkerchief she brushed the death-damp from the forehead that already seemed growing cold.  At her first touch, the woman’s eyelids opened and dropped together again.  Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth was clean and the fire was blazing.  Every time the girl passed the window she saw the widow across the way staring hard at the hut.  When she took the ashes into the street, the woman spoke to her.

“I can’t go to see Becky—­she hates me.”

“With good reason.”

The answer came with a clear sharpness that made the widow start and redden angrily; but the girl walked straight to the gate, her eyes ablaze with all the courage that the mountain woman knew and yet with another courage to which the primitive creature was a stranger—­a courage that made the widow lower her own eyes and twist her hands under her apron.

“I want you to come and ask Becky to forgive you.”

The woman stared and laughed.

“Forgive me?  Becky forgive me?  She wouldn’t—­an’ I don’t want her—­” She could not look up into the girl’s eyes; but she pulled a pipe from under the apron, laid it down with a trembling hand and began to rock slightly.

The girl leaned across the gate.

“Look at me!” she said, sharply.  The woman raised her eyes, swerved them once, and then in spite of herself, held them steady.

“Listen!  Do you want a dying woman’s curse?”

It was a straight thrust to the core of a superstitious heart and a spasm of terror crossed the woman’s face.  She began to wring her hands.

“Come on!” said the girl, sternly, and turned, without looking back, until she reached the door of the hut, where she beckoned and stood waiting, while the woman started slowly and helplessly from the steps, still wringing her hands.  Inside, behind her, the wounded Marcum, who had been listening, raised himself on one elbow and looked after her through the window.

“She can’t come in—­not while I’m in here.”

The girl turned quickly.  It was Dave Day, the teamster, in the kitchen door, and his face looked blacker than his beard.

“Oh!” she said, simply, as though hurt, and then with a dignity that surprised her, the teamster turned and strode towards the back door.

“But I can git out, I reckon,” he said, and he never looked at the widow who had stopped, frightened, at the gate.