"She told him I wouldn't face the shame; she told him I--I'd kill my own father, and that the blood would be on his hands; she told him if he'd let me go to the devil without another chance--me that had been named after him--that a curse would roost on his chest. He didn't want to give in to her--he didn't want to; but she scared him, and she's a woman and she knew how to get inside of him--she knew how. They're going to send me out to his mines, where I can start over, Renie. Out West, where it'll make a new man of me; where I can begin over--start right, Renie. Start right!" "Oh, Izzy darling!" "I can pay up when I earn the money like a man, Renie. It would have killed me if you had sold yourself to him for me. I'd have gone to the stripes first. But I got a man's chance now, Renie, and I don't have to do that rotten thing to you and Squash. A man's chance, Renie, and--and I'm going to take it." She sat down on the bed suddenly, as though the blood had flowed out of her heart, weakening her. "A sister like you that would have stuck; and--and I'm going to make good to a sister like you, Renie. I am, this time. Please believe me, Renie. I am! I am!" Her hand lay pressed to his cheek and she could feel the warm course of his tears. "Izzy, I knew you wasn't yellow; I--I knew you wasn't." Sobs shook him suddenly and he buried his face in the pillow beside her. "Why, Izzy! Why, Izzy darling, what--what is it, Izzy darling?" "It's nothing. You--you get out, Renie. I'm all right; only--only it's--it's--Now that it's all over, I--I--Just let me alone a minute, Renie. Go--you--please--please!" She closed the door behind her and fumbled through the gloom of the hallway, her hand faltering as she groped ahead. From the recesses of the moonflower vine Mr. Hochenheimer rose to meet her; and, because her limbs would tremble, she slid quickly into her chair. "You--you must excuse me, Mr. Hochenheimer." "It's all right, Miss Renie. I take up where we left off. It ain't so easy, Miss Renie, to begin all over again to say it, but--but will you be my--will you be my--" She was suddenly in his arms, burrowing against the speckled waistcoat a little resting-place for her head. IN MEMORIAM Toward the city Mother Earth turns a plate-glass eye and an asphalt bosom. The rhythm of her heart-beats does not penetrate through paved streets. That cadence is for those few of her billion children who have stayed by to sleep with an ear to the mossy floor of her woodlands. The prodigals, the future Tammany leaders, merchant princes, cotton kings, and society queens march on, each to an urban destiny. Nor is the return of the prodigal to Mother Earth along a piked highway. The road back to Nature is full of her own secrets, and few who have trod the streets of the city remember the brambled return, or care.