"You won't never leave me, Sadie, like you said you would? You won't leave me alone in the dark, Sadie?" "No, no, my darling; you know I won't, never, never." "You'll keep me with you always, promise me that, Sadie. Promise me _that_ on the curl of your mother's hair you wear in your locket. Promise me, little Sadie, you won't leave your aunt Dee Dee alone in the dark. My poor little girl, don't leave me alone in the dark. I can't see; Sadie, I can't see no more. Promise me, Sadie, promise me, promise me!" From Sadie Barnet's heart, weakening her like loss of blood, flowed her tears. She kissed the heart of Edith Worte where it beat like a clock beneath the high-necked nightdress; she made of her bosom a pillow of mercy and drew the head up to its warmth. "I--I promise, Dee Dee, on her curl of hair. Sure I promise. Always will I keep you with me, darling, always, always, so help me, always." Along the road to Newton Heights Spring and her firstlings crept out tenderly. Even close up to the rim of the oiled highway itself, an occasional colony of wood violets dared to show their heads for the brief moment before they suffocated. The threat of rain still lay on the air, but the Sunday rank and file of motors threw back tops, lowered windshields, and turned shining noses toward the greening fields. In the red-leather tonneau, with her little face wind-blown and bared to the kiss in the air, Sadie Barnet turned to her companion and peered under the visor of his checked cap and up into his small inset eyes. "Is--is that the house up on the hill there, Jerry?" "Not yet. It's right around the next bend." "Gee! My--my hands are like ice, I--I'm that nervous." "Lemme feel." "No." "That's a swell way to treat a fellow who's promised to marry you." "You--you must excuse me to-day, Jerry. Honest, without a wink of sleep last night--you must excuse me to-day. I--I'm so upset with poor Dee Dee, and on top of that so nervous about--your little girl and the house and everything. And, Dee Dee--when I think of Dee Dee." "Don't think, Peachy; that's the way to get around that." "I--I can't help it. You ought to seen her at the doctor's this morning, how--how the poor thing lost her nerve when he told her that there--there wasn't no hope." "Aw, now, cut the sob stuff, Peachy! You can't help it. Nobody can, that's the trouble. Say, what kind of a little queen will they think you are if I bring you home all soppy with crying?" "I ought not to have come, Jerry. I'm no kind of company to-day, only all of a sudden she's got so--so soft with me and she made me come while she--she tried to take a nap. Poor old Dee Dee!" "Yeh, and poor old devil. Maybe she's just getting what's due to her." "Jerry!" "Sure, I believe every one of us gets what's coming to us." "She--" "Here we are, Tootsie. See, Peachy, that's the house I bought her and her mother, and they was kicking at it before the plaster was dry." "Oh! Oh!"