"Afraid? No. What should I be afraid of? Why, it's bright moonlight!

I would just as soon go at night as in the daytime when the moon is bright."

"That is an awful man who lives at the Ramseys'!"

"Nonsense! I guess if he tried to bother us, Mrs. Ramsey would take care of him," said Maria. "Come along, Lily. I would ask Uncle Henry, but it is the night when he takes his bath, and he comes home tired."

"Well, I'll go if mother will let me," said Lily.

Then Lily called to her mother, who came to the sitting-room door in response.

"Mother," said Lily, "Maria wants me to go over to the Ramseys', those on the other side of the river, after supper, and carry these things to Jessy."

"Aren't you afraid?" asked Lily's mother, as Lily herself had done.

She was a faded but still pretty woman who had looked like her daughter in her youth. She was a widow with some property, enough for her Lily and herself to live on in comfort.

"Why, it's bright moonlight, Mrs. Merrill," said Maria, "and the Ramseys live just the other side of the river."

"Well, if Lily isn't afraid, I don't care," said Mrs. Merrill. She had an ulterior motive for her consent, of which neither of the two girls suspected her. She was smartly dressed, and her hair was carefully crimped, and she had, as always in the evening, hopes that a certain widower, the resident physician of Amity, Dr. Ellridge, might call. He had noticed her several times at church suppers, and once had walked home with her from an evening meeting. Lily never dreamed that her mother had aspirations towards a second husband. Her father had been dead ten years; the possibility of any one in his place had never occurred to her; then, too, she looked upon her mother as entirely too old for thoughts of that kind. But Mrs.

Merrill had her own views, which she kept concealed behind her pretty, placid exterior. She always welcomed the opportunity of being left alone of an evening, because she realized the very serious drawback that the persistent presence of a pretty, well-grown daughter might be if a wooer would wish to woo. She knew perfectly well that if Dr. Ellridge called, Lily would wonder why he called, and would sit all the evening in the same room with her fancy-work, entirely unsuspicious. Lily might even think he came to see her. Mrs.

Merrill had a measure of slyness and secrecy which her daughter did not inherit. Lily was not brilliant, but she was as entirely sweet and open as the flower for which she was named. She was emotional, too, with an innocent emotionlessness, and very affectionate. Mrs.

Merrill made almost no objection to Lily's going with Maria, but merely told her to wrap up warmly when she went out. Lily looked charming, with a great fur boa around her long, slender throat, and red velvet roses nestling under the brim of her black hat against the soft puff of her brown hair. She bent over her mother and kissed her.

"I hope you won't be very lonesome, mother dear," she said.

Mrs. Merrill blushed a little. To-night she had confident hopes of the doctor's calling; she had even resolved upon a coup. "Oh no, I shall not be lonesome," she replied. "Norah isn't going out, you know."

"We shall not be gone long, anyway," Lily said, as she went out. She had not even noticed her mother's blush. She was not very acute. She ran across the yard, the dry gra.s.s of which shone like a carpet of crisp silver in the moonlight, and knocked on Maria's door. Maria answered her knock. She was all ready, and she had her aunt Eunice's fish-net bag and her armful of parcels.

"Here, let me take some of them, dear," said Lily, in her cooing voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under her long, supple arm.

Maria's aunt Maria followed her to the door. "Now, mind you don't go into that house," said she. "Just leave the things and run right home; and if you see anybody who looks suspicious, go right up to a house and knock. I don't feel any too safe about you two girls going, anyway."

Aunt Maria spoke in a harsh, croaking voice; she had a cold. Maria seized her by the shoulders and pushed her back, laughingly.

"You go straight in the house," said she. "And don't you worry. Lily and I both have hat-pins, and we can both run, and there's nothing to be afraid of, anyway."

"Well, I don't half like the idea," croaked Aunt Maria, retreating.

Lily and Maria went on their way. Lily looked affectionately at her companion, whose pretty face gained a singular purity of beauty from the moonlight.

"How good you are, dear," she said.

"Nonsense!" replied Maria. Somehow all at once the consciousness of her secret, which was always with her, like some hidden wound, stung her anew. She thought suddenly how Lily would not think her good at all if she knew what an enormous secret she was hiding from her, of what duplicity she was guilty.

"Yes, you are good," said Lily, "to take all this trouble to get that poor little thing clothes."

"Oh, as for that," said Maria, "Mr. George Ramsey is the one to be thanked. It was his money that bought the things, you know."

"He is good, too," said Lily, and her voice was like a song with cadences of tenderness.

Maria started and glanced at her, then looked away again. A qualm of jealousy, of which she was ashamed, seized her. She gave her head a toss, and repeated, with a sort of defiance, "Yes, he is good enough, I suppose."

"I think you are real sweet," said Lily, "and I do think George Ramsey is splendid."

"I don't see anything very remarkable about him," said Maria.

"Don't you think he is handsome?"

"I don't know. I don't suppose I ever think much about a man being handsome. I don't like handsome men, anyway. I don't like men, anyway, when it comes to that."

"George Ramsey is very nice," said Lily, and there was an accent in her speech which made the other girl glance at her. Lily's face was turned aside, although she was clinging close to Maria's arm, for she was in reality afraid of being out in the night with another girl.

They walked along in silence after that. When they came to the covered bridge which crossed the river, Lily forced Maria into a run until they reached the other side.

"It is awful in here," she said, in a fearful whisper.

Maria laughed. She herself did not feel the least fear, although she was more imaginative than the other girl. At that time a kind of rage against life itself possessed her which made her insensible to ordinary fear. She felt that she had been hardly used, and she was, in a measure, at bay. She knew that she could fight anything until she died, and beyond that there was nothing certainly to fear. She had become abnormal because of her strained situation as regarded society. However, she ran because Lily wished her to do so, and they soon emerged from the dusty tunnel of the bridge, with its strong odor of horses, and glimpses between the sides of the silver current of the river, into the moon-flooded road.

After the bridge came the school-house, then, a half-mile beyond that, the Ramsey house. The front windows were blazing with light, and the sound of a loud, drunken voice came from within.

Lily shrank and clung closely to Maria.

"Oh, Maria, I am awfully afraid to go to the door," she whispered.

"Just hear that. Eugene Ramsey must be home drunk, and--and perhaps the other man, too. I am afraid. Don't let's go there."

Maria looked about her. "You see that board fence, then?" she said to Lily, and as she spoke she pointed to a high board fence on the other side of the street, which was completely in shadow.

"Yes."

"Well, if you are afraid, just go and stand straight against the fence. You will be in shadow, and if you don't move n.o.body can possibly see you. Then I will go to the door and leave the things."

"Oh, Maria, aren't you afraid?"

"No, I am not a bit afraid."

"You won't go in, honest?"

"No, I won't go in. Run right over there."

Lily released her hold of Maria's arm and made a fluttering break for the fence, against which she shrank and became actually invisible as a shadow. Maria marched up to the Ramsey door and knocked loudly.

Mrs. Ramsey came to the door, and Maria thrust the parcels into her hands and began pulling them rapidly out of the fish-net bag. Mrs.

Ramsey cast a glance behind her at the lighted room, through which was visible the same man whom Maria had seen before, and also another, and swung the door rapidly together, so that she stood in the dark entry, only partly lighted by the moonlight.

"I have brought some things for Jessy to wear to school, Mrs.

Ramsey," said Maria.

"Thank you," Mrs. Ramsey mumbled, doubtfully, with still another glance at the closed door, through which shone lines and c.h.i.n.ks of light.