She clutched her throat suddenly.

"He's in the water—he's drowning—he's passing out now—he's gone! You are responsible, you! you! You drove him to it with your false tongue and your crafty hands. But you'll regret it. You'll pay for it in misery and pain, Margaret Riley. Your old age will be miserable. You'll escape shame to suffer torment!"

Mrs. Riley's face, haggard and terrified, was working convulsively. Without taking her eyes from the medium, she ran into the front room and shook the boy's shoulder.

"Wake her up, Frankie, I don't want no more of this! Wake her up, dear, and let me go!"

Francis arose lazily and walked over to Madam Grant. He put his arm tenderly about her and whispered in her ear.

"Come back, Mamsy dear! Come back, Mamsy, I want you!" He began stroking her hands firmly.

Mrs. Riley, still gazing, fascinated, at the group, backed out of the room and closed the door. Her steps were heard stumbling down the stairs. Madam Grant's eyes quivered and opened slowly. She shuddered, then shook the blood back into her thin, white hands. Finally she looked up at Francis and smiled. "All right, dear!"

Her smile, however, lasted but for the few moments during which he caressed her; then the veil fell upon her countenance, and her eyes grew strange and hard. She gazed wildly here and there about the room.

"What's that in Boston?" she asked suddenly, the pitch of her voice sharply raised, as she pointed to the shells upon the rubbish of the floor.

"Only some peanuts I was eating, Mamsy," said the boy, guiltily watching her.

"Somebody has been in Toledo, somebody has been in New York! I can see the smoke of the trains!" Her eyes traveled around an invisible path, from mound to mound of dirt and scraps, noticing the slight displacements the boy had made in his quest for food. He watched her sharply, but without fear.

"Oh, the train didn't stop, Mamsy; they were express trains, you know."

"Don't tell me, don't tell me!"

She pointed with her slender forefinger here and there. "New Orleans is safe; New Orleans is always a safe, strait-laced old town; but the place isn't what it was! They've left the French quarter now to the Creoles, but I know a place on Royal Street where the gallery whispers—O God! that gallery with the magnolia trees—and the leper girl across the street in the end room!" Her voice had sunk to a harsh whisper; now it rose again. "Chicago—all right. I wouldn't care if it weren't. Baltimore—he never was in Baltimore. But what's the matter with Denver? Somebody's been to Denver!" She turned her gaze point-blank upon Francis.

He met it fairly.

"Oh, no, Mamsy, nobody ever goes to Denver, Mamsy dear!"

She knelt down and groped tentatively, sensitively, across the layer of dust that sloped toward the corner, by the bay-window. She turned, still on all-fours, to shake her finger at him, and say solemnly: "Don't ever go to Denver, Francis! Denver's a bad place, a very wicked place. They gamble in Denver, they gamble yellow money away." She arose, apparently either satisfied or diverted in her quest, to turn her back to the boy and look inside the bag she had been holding.

"Go outside, Francis!" she commanded, after fumbling with its contents.

He walked to the door and passed into the hall. Here he waited, listening listlessly, drumming softly upon the railing. The room was silent for a while; then he heard a muffled pounding, as of one stamping down the surface of the matted dirt. At last she called him and he went in again. Madam Grant's face was placid and kind.

She proceeded to occupy herself busily at the little oil stove, putting into the greasy frying-pan some chops which she had brought home with her. The spluttering and the pungent odor of the frying fat soon filled the two rooms. She cut a few slices from a loaf of stale bread, and set the meager repast forth upon the top of a wooden box.

"Come and have dinner, Francis!" she said, with a sweet look at him.

That the boy was far older than his years was evident by the way he watched her and took his cue from her, humoring her in her madder moments, restraining her in her moods of mystic exaltation, pathetically affectionate during her lucid intervals. She was in this last phase now, and from time to time, in the course of their meal, his hand stole to hers. Its pressure was softly returned.

"What have you read to-day?"

"I finished Gulliver."

"What did you think of it?"

"Why, somehow, it seemed just like it might be true."

"As if it might be true, Francis—what did I tell you?" Her tone grew severe, almost pedagogic. "You must be careful of your talk, my boy! Never forget; it is important. You'll never get on if you're careless and common. You will often be judged by your speech. What else did you read?"

"I tried Montaigne's Essays, but I couldn't understand much. It seemed so dull to me. But there's one, Whether the Governor of a Place Besieged Ought Himself to go out to Parley. I like that!"

Madam Grant laughed. "I'd like to have known Montaigne; he was a kind of old maid, but he was a modern, after all; common sense will do if you can't get humor."

"Where did you get all these books, Mamsy?"

Her face grew blank again; her eyes wandered. She recited in a sort of croon:

"Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never

repented his sin.

How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of

his kin?"

A frightened look came on the boy's face and his hand went to hers again.

"Mamsy, Mamsy!" he cried. "Come back, Mamsy! I want you!"

She turned to him as if she had never seen him before. "Oh!" she said, and drew aside. Then: "You mustn't ask questions, my boy."

"I won't, Mamsy."

"You're a good little boy and you came out of the dark," she pursued.

"Out of the dark?" he repeated, tempting her on. His curiosity was manifest.

"Don't you remember?"

"I'm not sure. They was a place—"

"There was a place," she corrected.

"There was a place where they beat me, and I ran away, and I found you, and you were good to me."

"No, it is you who have been good—I'm not good; I'm bad, Francis."

"I know you're good, Mamsy, because you teach me to