Katherine, shuddering, sobbing, felt herself caught up in the whirlwind-strength of a new impulse. She turned her back on her grandmother. A moment, and the door of her own chamber shut her in. Madam Crewe’s head fell forward upon her breast. * * * * * The clock had just struck half-past five, when Martha groped her way downstairs. She had her work "cut out for her," as she would have expressed it, and must start in promptly. She had just kindled a new fire in the kitchen-range, and was about to set out for the henhouse, and cow-barn, when a step on the porch brought her up standing. In a second she had crossed the room, swung open the kitchen-door. "Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless undertone of one brought face to face with a dread turned reality. Katherine seemed to understand without need of explanation. She shook her head. "No—grandmother’s not sick. Grandmother is all right. But—I’m going away. I’ve left home. I’ll never go back! Never! We had it out together last night, grandmother and I. _Last_ night, and _all_ night. I’ll never cross that doorsill again, if I have to beg in the streets, or—starve." Martha quietly closed the door, led Katherine to a chair, then set the water-kettle on the stove, without asking a question, saying a word. "I’ve come straight to you, Mrs. Slawson," the girl continued breathlessly, "because you’re my only friend in the place. The only one who knows anything about the kind of life I’ve led, and would understand." "But, I _don’t_ understand," Martha corrected her. "I thought—that is to say, I somehow or other, got the idea the two of youse was goin’ to get along better, after this. I can’t think how things could ’a’ got to this pass when, the last I heard, everything looked so promisin’." Katherine took her up quickly. "I don’t know what you mean by _promising_. The day Mrs. Ronald was taken sick, I told grandmother about—about—what I’d done. You know—the pocket—with the letters. And she treated me like a dog. Oh, she was cruel. Sent me away, out of her sight, as if I’d been something hateful to her—which I am. She hasn’t spoken to me since, until last night, except to give some order. I don’t know how you can say you thought things ’looked promising.’" Martha measured out two heaping tablespoonfuls of freshly-ground coffee into the percolator, and set it on the stove. "I saw your gran’ma yesterday, Miss Katherine," she explained. "Her an’ me had a long talk, an’, from what she dropped, I got the impression she meant to turn over a new leaf two-wards you, if you’d give her the chance." "Did she say she meant to?" "No, not eggsackly ’_say_.’ But——"