"I reckon," he said, after a momentary struggle over a desire to tell the plain truth instead of prevaricating, "if you don’t know that woman by this time, Virgie, it’s your own fault. I’m sure I don’t try to keep up with her tantrums and sudden notions. That woman’s died forty-seven times in her life, and been laid out and buried ten. Maybe she’s been tasting them pies she was cooking, and got crooked. You let a body’s liver be at all sluggish and get a wad o’ sweet-potato dough lodged inside of ’em, and they’ll have a sort of jim-jams not brought on by liquor. I reckon she’ll cough it down after a while. If I was you, though, I’d let her alone." Jane was, indeed, acting strangely. Refusing to sit down to the mid-day meal with them, as was her invariable custom, she put on her bonnet and shawl and, without a word of explanation, set off in the direction of Wilson’s store. She was gone till dusk, and then came in with a slow step, passed through the sitting-room, where Sam had made a cheerful fire, and went on to her own room in the rear of the house. Virginia rose to follow her solicitously, but Sam put out a detaining hand, shifting his pipe into the corner of his mouth. "I’d let her alone if I was in your place," he said. "Let her go to bed and sleep. She’ll get up all right in the morning." "I only wanted to see if there was anything I could do for her," Virginia said, in a troubled tone. "Do you suppose it is a relapse she is having? Perhaps she has discovered that the cancer is coming back. The fear of that would kill her, actually kill her." "I don’t think that’s it," said Sam, impulsively; "the truth is, Virginia, she—" He pulled himself up. "But maybe that _is_ it. Anyway, I’d let her alone." Darkness came down. Virginia spread the cloth in the big kitchen and put the plates and dishes in their places, and then slipped to the door of her mother’s room. It was dark and still. "Supper is on the table, mother," she said; "do you want anything?" There was a sudden creaking of the bed-slats, a pause, then, in a sullen, husky voice, Jane answered, "No, I _don’t_; you leave me alone!" "All right, mother; I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night." Sam and his niece ate alone in the big room by the wavering light of the fire. The wind had risen on the mountain-top, and roared across the fields. It sang dolefully in the pines near by, whistled shrilly under the eaves of the house, and scurried through the open passage outside. After the meal was over, Sam smoked a pipe and thumped off to bed, carrying his shoes in his hand. Virginia buried the remains of the big back-log in the hot ashes, and in the darkness crept into her own room, adjoining that of her mother, and went to bed.