"I would know it, and it would do no harm for me to know that you could keep your word."
"Then we will go in; you lead the way."
Cherokee hesitated, and the miserable woman, seeing this, cried in sudden excitement:
"Is your wife afraid of her, now that she is dead?"
Willard Frost, at the mention of wife, started. He had, after all, forgotten to explain that to Cherokee.
"Do not heed her wild fancy," he whispered, as he motioned her to go in front.
Instinctively the hag folded her wasted hands; most piteously she raised her bewildered eyes, imploringly, to Cherokee.
"Won't you please go in, for if she can see from the other world to this, she will be pleased."
"If it pleases you, I will go in for your sake." As they entered the waiting doorway, Frost walked to the low lounge—he was more deeply moved than he cared to show. There, before him, lay the pulseless clay, the features horribly distorted, the hands and limbs terribly drawn.
"This," he said to Cherokee, "was caused by paralysis. Nature was once a kind mother to her."
He shook his head, musingly, and ran his fingers over the sleeper's hands. At first he did it with a
