"Aw, no, dearie! n.o.body ever made John Blaney do nothing he didn't want to do. He's dead now and can't take up for hisself, but he was hard as nails--even if he was my brother-in-law."

"'Sh-h-h, Cottie, little sister."

"I always say, Della, Gawd knows I ain't got a cinch! I hate the factory like I hate a green devil, and you know what it is to live around maw's d.o.g.g.i.n' and abuse, but it's like I tole Joe the other night: I wouldn't marry the finest man livin' before I'd had my chance to try out what I had my heart set on. I told him he could save his breath. I'm goin' to take a chance on gettin' out of this dump--not on tyin' up to it."

"Joe's a good boy, Cottie. He's a saint alongside of what John was.

Steady fellows and foremen ain't layin' around loose, dearie. He's a good boy, Cottie--none finer."

"Della! You ain't--"

"No; I ain't urgin' you, Cottie. I ain't sayin' you're not right to hold off, but Joe's the finest boy in these parts, ain't he?"

"That ain't sayin' much. You wasn't a big-enough gambler, Della. You remember how I begged you the night before the wedding to hold off. I ain't goin' to make your mistake. You ought 'a' done what Lily done--took a chance. Tessie says her pictures were all pasted up outside of Indianapolis last week. Lily Divette in the 'Twinkling Belles.' If Lily Maloney with her baby face and--"

"I--I stuck to John to the end, though--didn't I, Cottie? n.o.body can say I didn't stick to him--can they, Cottie?"

"No, no! Now don't go gettin' excited again, dearie."

"Oh, Gawd, Gawd, Cottie. I--I feel--so--so--queer!"

"Yes, darlin', I know!"

The cryptic quiescence of death hung over the unpainted pine bedchamber and chilled their skin like damp in a cave seeps through clothing. From the far side of the bed a lamp wavered against a tin reflector and danced through their hair like firelight in copper; wind galloped over the flat country, shook the box-shaped house, and whinnied on every flue.

Cottie, whose head was Tiziano's Flora yet more radiant, held her sister's equally radiant head close to her warm bosom, and through the calico of her open-at-the-throat waist, her heart pumped the organ-prelude of Life--Life in the midst of Death.

"Della darlin'--don't--don't be afraid to talk to me. Ain't--ain't I your--sister?"

"What--what--"

"I--I know--what you're thinkin', Della--"

"'Sh-h-h; not now!"

"You're thinkin' that you're--that you're _free_, now, darlin'--free--ain't you?"

"'Sh-h-h-h!"

"Free, darlin'--think--there ain't nothin' can hold you! A hundred dollars' benefit-money and--"

"Gawd, Cottie--Cottie--'sh-h-h! Him layin' in there dead! It--it ain't no time to talk about that now. Anyways, you're the one to go. I'll stay with maw."

Her words tumbled, and her tones were galvanized with fear and fear's offspring, superst.i.tion. She glanced toward the half-open door with eyes two shades too dark.

"No, no, Della; you're the oldest. You go first, and I--I'll stick it out with maw till--she's gettin' feebler every day, Delia, and I'll be joinin' you some day not far off."

"'Sh-h-h; it ain't right. I--I'll give her--half the benefit-money, Cottie, but it's a sin to--"

"You and folks make me sick. If the devil hisself was to die you'd snivel and bury him in priest's robes. What John _was_ he _was_--dyin'

didn't change it. Ten days ago you were standin' at this very window answering his signal and hating him with every swing of the lantern."

"Cottie, you mustn't!"

"I used to see you sit across from him at the table, and when he yelled at you or wanted to pet you I've seen you run your finger-nails into you palms from hatin' him, clear in till they bled, like you used to do when you was a kid and hated any one, and now, just because he's dead--"

"Oh, Gawd, I never done the right thing by him! He was my husband. Look how bare I kept everything from him. He used to come home from a forty-eight-hour shift and say this house reminded him of h.e.l.l with the fire gone out. I never did the right thing by him."

"He didn't by you, neither."

"He was my husband."

"He knew if we'd 'a' had the money to light out and do like Lily he wouldn't 'a' stood a show of bein' your husband, though. He knew, from the day they put the bandages on maw's eyes, thet he was just the only way out for us. He knew one of us had to quit the factory and stay home with her--and where was the money comin' from? He knew."

"Yes, he knew, Cottie. Even on the New York accommodation, that time on the wedding-trip, trouble began right off. When that fellow on the train got talkin' to me and told me he could give me a job in the biggest show on Broadway, he nearly hauled off and raised a row right there on the train when he came back and seen me talkin' to him."

"If only you'd got the fellow's name, Della, and his street in New York!"

"How could I, when John came back and began snarlin' like--"

"Would you know him if you seen him again, Della? Think, darlin', would you?"

"Would I? In my sleep I'd know him. He was a short fellow with eyes so little they didn't show when he laughed, and a mouth full of gold teeth that stuck out like a buck's. And say, Cottie, for diamonds! A diamond horseshoe scarf-pin as big as a dollar!"

"There's money in it, Della. Look at Lily. Tessie says she's diamond rings to her knuckles."

"John knew what took the life out of me, from that day on. He used to say if he ever laid eyes on that little bullet-headed, rat-eyed sport, as he called him, he'd shake the life out of him. Just like that!"

"Faugh! he wouldn't 'a' had the nerve!"

"Don't you forget he knew what was eatin' us, Cottie."

"Well, wasn't it our right--a beauty like you in this dump?"

"And you?"

Their faces, startlingly alike, were upturned, and in their eyes was the golden fluid of dawn.

"He knew. You remember that letter Lily wrote when you asked her to get you in her show?"

"Do I?"

"He found it in my pocket one night and read it, and laughed and laughed. He used to know it by heart, and he'd cackle it to me whenever he caught me red-eyed from cryin'."

"That letter she wrote out of jealousy? He seen that?"

"Yeh! 'Stay home, dearie,' he used to sing to me, laughin' to split his sides; 'stay home, like Della did, and make happiness and a home for yourself.'"

"Gawd!"