"Well," Ann exclaimed, her brow ruffled with pained perplexity, "I hardly know what to say in the matter. I don’t blame you for letting out the whole business after you once got started. That was just natural. But don’t worry about her. She’ll pull through; she’s tough as whitleather; her trouble’s not of the body, but the mind. I know; I’ve been through enough of it. Mark my prophecy, she’ll come out one of these days feeling better. She’ll crawl out of her darkness like a butterfly from its dead and useless husk. She’ll see clearer out in the open light when once she strikes it. Look here, child. I don’t want to look like a sniffling fool after all the hard rubs I’ve had in this life to toughen me, but I’m a changed woman. Reading Luke’s wonderful articles every week, and remembering the things the boy has said to me off and on, had something to do with it, I reckon, and then this experience of yours on top of it all helped. Yes, I’m altered; I’m altered and against my natural inclination. That very woman is _the_ one particular human thorn in my flesh, and yet, yet, child, as the Lord is my Master, I mighty nigh feel sorry for her. I mighty nigh pity the poor, old, sin-slashed creature housed up there in solitary darkness with her bleeding pride and envy and hate. I pity her now, I reckon, because the way this has turned out hurts her more than any open fight she could have with me. I’d ’a’ died long ago under all the slush and mire that was dabbed on me if I hadn’t amused myself making money. I didn’t have the social standing of some of these folks, but I had the hard cash, and the clink of my coin has been almost as loud as their taunts. But your ma—she’s had very little substance all along, and that little has been dwindling day by day, till she finds herself without a dollar and owing her very life to a woman she hates. Yes, her lot is a hard one, and I’m sorry for her. I pity your mammy, child." XXXVII For two weeks longer Jane Hemingway, to the inexplicable sorrow of her gentle and mystified daughter, kept the seclusion of her room. The curtains of the single window looking out on the yard in the rear were constantly drawn, and, though the girl sometimes listened attentively with her ear to the wall, she heard no sound to indicate that her mother ever moved from her bed or her chair at the fireplace, where she sat enveloped in blankets. She had allowed Virginia to push a plate containing her meals three times a day through the door, but the things were promptly received into the darkness and only sullen silence was the invariable response to the frequent inquiries the girl made. One morning Sam stopped his niece in the yard near the well, a droll, half-amused expression on his face. "Do you know," he said, "that I believe I’d 'a’ made a bang-up detective if I’d given time to it." "Do you think so?" Virginia said, absently.