"Dear God--what can I do? I tell you selling the hotel or renting it or dynamiting it won't stop drinking in this town, so long as there are men in it who want drink and will drink. I don't think even the vote that that little girl suggested will do it. If you vote it out you'll have blind pigs to fight. No, sir! It ain't my fault nor no one man's fault. The whole town's to blame. There's only one thing will stop it. If men in this country will quit making it other men will stop drinking it. So long as it's made it'll be used. The whole country's to blame." Fanny Foster, having nobody else to talk to, was speaking her mind to John, her husband. "I told Grandma Wentworth nobody but the Almighty could do anything for Jim. You'll see that I'm right. I know." Fanny was right. But what she did not know was that she herself was to be one of the instruments with which a stern and patient God was to clean out forever the one foul blot on Green Valley life. The one person who was not discussing Jim Tumley and his trouble was Jocelyn. She couldn't. She was too occupied with troubles of her own. She had been the first to leave. She slipped away unobserved for she could not bear to have Green Valley see her leave without an escort. So she got away as noiseless as a fairy. And for the first few rods all was well. The excitement of the past hours, the worry of getting away unseen, kept her mind occupied. But as the night wind cooled her cheeks and the lighted house back of her grew smaller she grew frightened. She was, after all, a city girl and to her there was something fearful in the stillness of the country and the loneliness of the dark road. She hurried her steps, jumped at every sound and grew cold from pure terror as the awful stillness and emptiness closed in about her. She stood still every few minutes, staring at blurred bushes beside the road. The screech of an owl almost made her scream. And in the dark the hard lumpy road hurt her feet cruelly. The little slippers were never meant for dark country roads. So Jocelyn had to pick her steps, and with every second's delay her terror grew. Finally the trees thinned a bit and for a good space ahead there was a clearing where the night was not so dark and the road not so lumpy. She hurried to get out of the smother of trees. When once she crossed that open space all would be well, she told herself, for then the village lights would wink at her and the sidewalks begin. As soon as she could see her own lighted windows and set foot on a cement walk she would no longer be afraid. So, head bent, she hurried along and was almost near the walk when, looking up, she saw a man hurrying toward her through a little footpath that led to the road. She stood motionless with horror. Then the scream that had hovered on her lips all the way escaped her and she tried to run.