going to burn until your life goes out with that sort of fire, you don't owe me anything!"
"Oh, Katharine Comstock!" groaned Elvira Carney, clinging to the fence for support.
"Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, 'The wages of sin is death,' don't it?" asked Mrs. Comstock. "Instead of doing a woman's work in life, you chose the smile of invitation, and the dress of unearned cloth. Now you tell me you are marked to burn to death with the unquenchable fire. And him! It was shorter with him, but let me tell you he got his share! He left me with an untruth on his lips, for he told me he was going to take his violin to Onabasha for a new key, when he carried it to you. Every vow of love and constancy he ever made me was a lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong side of the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was coming, it reached out for him, and it got him. It didn't hurry, either! It just sucked him down, slow and deliberate."
"Mercy!" groaned Elvira Carney. "Mercy!"
"I don't know the word," said Mrs. Comstock. "You took all that out of me long ago. The last twenty years haven't been of the sort that taught mercy. I've never had any on myself and none on my child. Why, in the name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both older than me, both strong, sane people. You deliberately chose your course when you lured him, and he, when he was unfaithful to me. When a Loose Man and a Light Woman face the death the Almighty
