It was perhaps five months after his return that she was sitting one afternoon in Mrs. Champney's room, in attendance on her while the regular nurse was out for two hours. There had been no conversation between them for nearly the full time, when Mrs. Champney spoke abruptly from the bed: "I heard last month that Champney Googe is back again--has been back for five months; why didn't you tell me before?" The voice was very weak, but querulous and sharp. Aileen was sewing at the window. She did not look up. "Because I didn't suppose you liked him well enough to care about his coming home; besides, it was Octavius' place to tell you." "Well, I don't care about his coming, or his going either, for that matter, but I do care about knowing things that happen under my very nose within a reasonable time of their happening. I'm not in my dotage yet, I'll have you to understand." Aileen was silent. "Come, say something, can't you?" she snapped. "What do you want me to say, Mrs. Champney?" She spoke wearily, but not impatiently. The daily, almost hourly demands of this sick old woman had, in a way, exhausted her. "Tell me what he's doing." "He's at work." "Where?" "In the sheds--Shed Number Two." "What!" Paralysis prevented any movement of her hands, but her head jerked on the pillow to one side, towards Aileen. "I said he was at work in the sheds." "What's Champney Googe doing in the sheds?" "Earning his living, I suppose, like other men." Almeda Champney was silent for a while. Aileen could but wonder what the thoughts might be that were filling the shrivelled box of the brain--what were the feelings in the ossifying heart of the woman who had denied help to one of her own blood in time of need. Had she any feeling indeed, except that for self? "Have you seen him?" "No." "I should think he would want to hide his head for shame." "I don't see why." She spoke defiantly. "Why? Because I don't see how after such a career a man can hold up his head among his own." Aileen bit her under lip to keep back the sharp retort. She chose another and safer way. "Oh," she said brightly, looking over to Mrs. Champney with a frank smile, "but he has really just begun his career, you know--" "What do you mean by that?" "I mean he has just begun honest work among honest men, and that's the best career for him or any other man to my thinking." "Umph!--little you know about it." Aileen laughed outright. "Oh, I know more than you think I do, Mrs. Champney. I haven't lived twenty-six years for nothing, and what I've seen, I've seen--and I've no near-sighted eyes to trouble me either; and what I've heard, I've heard, for my ears are good--regular long-distance telephones sometimes." She was not prepared for the next move on Mrs. Champney's part. "I believe you would marry him now--after all, if he asked you." She spoke with a sneer.