"What can the woman mean?" she muttered, as she slowly pursued her way. "Maybe she’s just doing that to worry me. But no, she was in earnest—dead in earnest—both times. She never says things haphazard; she’s no fool, either. It must be something simply awful or she wouldn’t mention it just that way. Now, I’m going to let _this_ take hold of me and worry me night and day like the cancer did." She paused and stood in the road panting, her hand, by force of habit, resting on her breast. Looking across the meadow, she saw Ann Boyd sturdily trudging homeward through the waist-high bulrushes. The slanting rays of the sun struck the broad back of the hardy outcast and illumined the brown cotton-land which stretched on beyond her to the foot of the mountain. Jane Hemingway caught her breath and moved on homeward, pondering over the mystery which was now running rife in her throbbing brain. Yes, it was undoubtedly something terrible—but what? That was the question—what? Reaching home, she was met at the door by Virginia, who came forward solicitously to take her shawl. A big log-fire, burning in the wide chimney of the sitting-room, lighted it up with a red glow. Jane sank into her favorite chair, listlessly holding in her hands the small parcel of green coffee she had bought at the store. "Let me have it," Virginia said. "I must parch it and grind it for supper. The coffee is all out." As the girl moved away with the parcel, Jane’s eyes followed her. "Should she tell her daughter what had taken place?" she asked herself. Perhaps a younger, fresher mind could unravel the grave puzzle. But how could she bring up the matter without betraying the fact that she had been the aggressor? No, she must simply nurse her new fears in secret for a while and hope for—well, what could she hope for, anyway? She lowered her head, her sharp elbows on her knees, and stared into the fire. Surely fate was against her, and it was never intended for her to get the best of Ann Boyd in any encounter. Through all her illness she had been buoyed up by the triumphant picture of Ann Boyd’s chagrin at seeing her sound of body again, and this had been the result. Instead of humiliating Ann, Ann had filled her quaking soul with a thousand intangible, rapidly augmenting fears. The cloud of impending disaster stretched black and lowering across Jane Hemingway’s horizon. Sam came in with a bundle of roots in his arms, and laid them carefully on a shelf. "I’ve dug me some sassafras of the good, red variety," he said, over his shoulder, to her. "You folks that want to can spend money at drug stores, but in the fall of the year, if I drink plenty of sassafras tea instead of coffee, it thins my blood and puts me in apple-pie order. But I reckon you don’t want _your_ blood any thinner than them doctors left it. Right now you look as flabby and limber as a wet rag. What ails you, _anyway_?"