And even as she leaned over to open her lips a figure, swift as a Greek, dashed to the veranda—­up the steps three at a bound.

“Renie!”

“Izzy!” She rose, pushing back her chair, and her hand flew to her breast.

“Just a minute.  Inside I gotta see you quick, Renie.  Howdy, Hochenheimer?  You excuse her a minute.  I got to see her.”

His voice was like wine that sings in the pouring.

“Yes, yes, Izzy; I’m coming.”  Hers was trembling and pizzicato.  “Excuse me a minute, Mr. Hochenheimer—­a minute.”

Mr. Hochenheimer rose, mopping his brow.  “It’s all right, Miss Renie.  I wait out here on the porch till it pleases you.”

In her tiny bedroom, with the light turned up, she faced her brother; and he grasped her shoulders so that, through the sheer texture of her dress, his hands left red prints on the flesh.

“Renie, you ’ain’t done it, have you?”

“No, no, Izzy; I’ve done nothing.  Where you been?”

He gave a great laugh and sank into a chair, limp.  “You don’t have to, Renie.  It’s all right!  I’ve fixed it.  Everything is all right!”

“What do you mean?”

Then, as though the current of his returning vigor could know no bounds, he scooped her in a one-armed embrace that fairly raised her from the floor.

“All of a sudden, when you went out, Renie, I remembered Aunt Becky.  You remember she was the one who made Uncle Isadore fork over to papa that time about the mortgage?”

“Yes, yes.”

“All of a sudden it came over me that she was the only one who could do anything with him.  I ran over to the house—­all the way I ran, Renie.  She was up in her room, and—­and it’s all right, Renie.  I told her, and she’s fixed it—­fixed it!”

“Oh, Izzy!”

“She’s fixed it.  When he came home to supper we got him right away up in her room before he had his hat off.  Like a mother she begged for me, Renie—­like a mother.  God!  I—­I tell you I couldn’t go through it again; but she got him, Renie—­she got him!”

“Go on, Izzy—­go on!”

“She told him I wouldn’t face the shame; she told him I—­I’d kill my own father, and that the blood would be on his hands; she told him if he’d let me go to the devil without another chance—­me that had been named after him—­that a curse would roost on his chest.  He didn’t want to give in to her—­he didn’t want to; but she scared him, and she’s a woman and she knew how to get inside of him—­she knew how.  They’re going to send me out to his mines, where I can start over, Renie.  Out West, where it’ll make a new man of me; where I can begin over—­start right, Renie.  Start right!”

“Oh, Izzy darling!”

“I can pay up when I earn the money like a man, Renie.  It would have killed me if you had sold yourself to him for me.  I’d have gone to the stripes first.  But I got a man’s chance now, Renie, and I don’t have to do that rotten thing to you and Squash.  A man’s chance, Renie, and—­and I’m going to take it.”