Noon came and she prepared dinner, calling, as she always did, when Elnora was in the garden, but she got no response, and the girl did not come.  A little after one o’clock Margaret stopped at the gate.

“Elnora has changed her mind.  She is not going,” called Mrs. Comstock.

She felt that she hated Margaret as she hitched her horse and came up the walk instead of driving on.

“You must be mistaken,” said Margaret.  “I was going on purpose for her.  She asked me to take her.  I had no errand.  Where is she?”

“I will call her,” said Mrs. Comstock.

She followed the path again, and this time found Elnora sitting on the log.  Her face was swollen and discoloured, and her eyes red with crying.  She paid no attention to her mother.

“Mag Sinton is here,” said Mrs. Comstock harshly.  “I told her you had changed your mind, but she said you asked her to go with you, and she had nothing to go for herself.”

Elnora arose, recklessly waded through the deep swamp grasses and so reached the path ahead of her mother.  Mrs. Comstock followed as far as the garden, but she could not enter the cabin.  She busied herself among the vegetables, barely looking up when the back-door screen slammed noisily.  Margaret Sinton approached colourless, her eyes so angry that Mrs. Comstock shrank back.

“What’s the matter with Elnora’s face?” demanded Margaret.

Mrs. Comstock made no reply.

“You struck her, did you?”

“I thought you wasn’t blind!”

“I have been, for twenty long years now, Kate Comstock,” said Margaret Sinton, “but my eyes are open at last.  What I see is that I’ve done you no good and Elnora a big wrong.  I had an idea that it would kill you to know, but I guess you are tough enough to stand anything.  Kill or cure, you get it now!”

“What are you frothing about?” coolly asked Mrs. Comstock.

“You!” cried Margaret.  “You!  The woman who doesn’t pretend to love her only child.  Who lets her grow to a woman, as you have let Elnora, and can’t be satisfied with every sort of neglect, but must add abuse yet; and all for a fool idea about a man who wasn’t worth his salt!”

Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe.

“Go right on!” she said.  “Empty yourself.  It’s the last thing you’ll ever do!”

“Then I’ll make a tidy job of it,” said Margaret.  “You’ll not touch me.  You’ll stand there and hear the truth at last, and because I dare face you and tell it, you will know in your soul it is truth.  When Robert Comstock shaved that quagmire out there so close he went in, he wanted to keep you from knowing where he was coming from.  He’d been to see Elvira Carney.  They had plans to go to a dance that night——­”

“Close your lips!” said Mrs. Comstock in a voice of deadly quiet.