he thought. Burnett had worked on Mary's dissatisfaction with his flattery, reaching the painfully accumulated savings in that ancient, but effective way. He reserved a humanitarian hope that some portion of the five thousand dollars had been withheld, yet doubted it, from the increasing volume of the widow's lamentations.
It was not his affair; he had done all he could to prevent the loss. Secretly Burnett had wormed into the hoardings, and with equal secrecy Mrs. Charles had yielded to Mary's importunities. Let her howl. Maybe it would do her good. He returned to his book, but was unable to fasten his mind on the theme, Mrs. Charles' sobs and wild outbursts shattering the tranquillity of the heat-burdened day.
Annie came running over presently, woe in her face, imploring the doctor to do something for her mother, who was going crazy over her loss, she said. While Hall knew time was the only doctor that could do Mrs. Charles any good, he took his case and went with Annie.
Mrs. Charles had reached a resolution to start out after Burnett, deaf to the pleas of Mary and the more sensible argument of Annie that she did not know where he was, that nobody knew. When Hall entered the kitchen Mrs. Charles was standing in the middle of the floor, weaving from side to side, restrained by Mary in her preparations for pursuit. She had put her—aac on over her disordered hair, and was holding ber shoes in one hand, her corsets in the other. She was reduced by that time to a sort of dumb determination to go and find Burnett and cut his heart in strings. She had laid out the biggest butcher knife in her kitchen, ready to snatch it up and rush away on her terrible mission of vengeance, which
