“I think you’re the one that ought to tell her,” said Mrs. Ray.

“I think it’s your place to, seeing as ’twas your Ezra that knew about it,” returned the doctor’s wife.  Her voice sounded like the hum of a bee, being full of husky vibrations; her double chin sank into her broad heaving bosom, folded over with white plaided muslin.

“Seems to me it belongs to you, as long as you’re the doctor’s wife,” said Mrs. Ray.  She was very small and lean beside the soft bulk of the other woman, but there was a sort of mental uplifting about her which made her unconscious of it.  Mrs. Ray had never considered herself a small woman; she seemed always to see the tops of other women’s heads.

The doctor’s wife looked at her dubiously, panting softly all over her great body.  It was a warm afternoon.  The low red and white rose-bushes sprayed all around the step-stone, and they were full of roses.  The doctor’s wife raised the brass knocker.  “Well, I’d just as lieves,” said she, resignedly.  “She’d ought to be told, anyway; the doctor said so.”  The knocker fell with a clang of brass.

Deborah opened the door at once.  “Good-afternoon,” said she.

“We thought we’d come over a few minutes, it’s so pleasant this afternoon,” said the doctor’s wife.

“Walk in,” said Deborah.  She aided them in through the kitchen to the north parlor.  She always entertained guests there on warm afternoons.

The north parlor was very cool and dark; the curtains were down, and undulated softly like sails.  Deborah placed the big haircloth rocking-chair for the doctor’s wife, and Mrs. Ray sat down on the sofa.

There was a silence.  The doctor’s wife flushed red.  Mrs. Ray’s sharp face was imperturbable.  Deborah, sitting erect in one of her best flag-bottomed chairs, looked as if she were alone in the room.

The doctor’s wife cleared her throat.  “Mis’ Thayer,” she began.

Deborah looked at her with calm expectation.

“Mis’ Thayer,” said the doctor’s wife, “Mis’ Ray and I thought we ought to come over here this afternoon.  Mis’ Ray heard something last night, an’ she came over an’ told the doctor, an’ he said you ought to know—­”

The doctor’s wife paused, panting.  Then the door opened and Caleb peered in.  He bowed stiffly to the two guests; then, with apprehensive glances at his wife, slid into a chair near the door.

“Mis’ Ray’s Ezra told her last night,” proceeded the doctor’s wife, “that the night before your son died he run away unbeknown to you, an’ went slidin’ down hill.  The doctor says mebbe that was what killed him.  He said you’d ought to know.”

Deborah leaned forward; her face worked like the breaking up of an icy river.  “Be you sure?” said she.

“Ezra told me last night,” interposed Mrs. Ray.  “I had a hard time gettin’ it out of him; he promised Ephraim he wouldn’t tell.  But somethin’ he said made me suspect, an’ I got it out of him.  He said Ephraim told him he run away, an’ he left him there slidin’ when he came home.  ’Twas as much as ’leven o’clock then; I remember I give Ezra a whippin’ next mornin’ for stayin’ out so late.  But then, of course, whippin’ Ezra wa’n’t nothin’ like whippin’ Ephraim.”