Though the widow's tongue had been busy, her eyes had followed the tea-making closely. It was not a success. Viola had abandoned it, and her hands were now clasped under the edge of the table. But she made no comment, sitting motionless, with her face averted. Nothing daunted, Mrs. Cassidy returned to the charge. "He was just dead set upon finding you. He says to me as he left, says he, 'If you hear anything of her, Mrs. Cassidy, let me know. Send over Mick the first thing in the morning.'" It must be confessed that Mrs. Cassidy's imagination had added this last touch; but to Viola, in her fluttered alarm, it carried no suggestion of fiction. "Mrs. Cassidy," she said, turning on the woman, "you haven't let him know? You haven't sent Mick?" "Lord love you, no, dear," returned the widow, good-humoredly. "I was waiting till you pulled yourself together a little more. But don't you think, now,"--she leaned forward and spoke in a wheedling tone, but with her eyes full of an avid interest,--"don't you think you might write a little letter, and Mick'll take it over to his office this evening?" Viola pushed back from the table, her face suddenly suffused with an angry red. "No--no!" she cried violently. "Don't think of such a thing--don't suggest it! I don't want to see that gentleman again, ever. This is my affair, Mrs. Cassidy; leave it to me." She rose from the table and walked to the window. "There's no use gettin' mad about it," retorted the other, somewhat tartly, rising from the rocker and setting the tea-things on the tray. "I'm only tryin' to do the best I can for you. And it don't seem to me just right for a girl like you, young and not over-strong, to be knockin' round this way, when she's got friends ready to black her boots for her. Still, it's your funeral, not mine." There was no reply, and as she lifted the tray she said in an aggrieved tone: "I don't want to hurt no one's feelin's, but I want to do my dooty in this world. Well, good night, deary. Don't get down on your luck. You're not so friendless as you think." After she had left the room, Viola stood motionless, looking out of the window on the gray and soot-grimed back yard. Night was falling, and the washing, still pendulating on its lines after the slovenly fashion of the neighborhood, gleamed white and ghostly through the dusk. A high brick wall shut off the end of the lot, and over this, dark, mournful-looking trails of ivy hung downward, rubbing back and forth in the passing breaths of wind. It was a prospect and an hour conducive to melancholy. But Viola felt none. For the moment a sense of hunted terror had shut out all other feelings.