Its insistent reiteration, since the night before, had drowned out the impression of Mrs. Peckett’s mischievous tongue, even Katherine’s poignant reproaches. Everything else fell into the background before that one soundless cry of appeal. For once in her life Martha hurried. Eunice Youngs met her at the kitchen-porch, showing a scared face. "Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she drawled, with something in her voice and manner almost resembling animation, "oh, Mrs. Slawson, if ever I was glad to see anybody!" "What’s the trouble?" "I d’know. When I went up to Miss Katherine’s room about an hour ago, with Madam’s coffee, I knocked an’ knocked, an’ no one answered. Then, I went to Madam’s door, an’ knocked an’ knocked, an’ no one answered. But the sitting-room door was open, so I peeked in, an’——" "Well?" Martha’s impatience spurred her on. "Madam was sitting up in her chair, just like always, only she—looked like she was dead." Before the words were fairly out, Martha had brushed Eunice aside, and was halfway up the back stairs. In the moment it took her to cover the distance between them and the sitting-room, her thoughts ran riot, but one sentence kept repeating itself unconsciously: "Poor Miss Katherine! Poor Miss Katherine!" Automatically she tapped on the sitting-room door, pushed it open, and entered. Madam Crewe was sitting in her chair, as Eunice had described her, but as Martha came forward, the drooping head lifted ever so slightly, the heavy eyes gave out a faint spark. Without a word Martha poured into a glass one of Dr. Ballard’s stimulants, in the use of which she had been well instructed. She held the glass to Madam Crewe’s lips, supporting her while she drank, then waiting until the lips showed a tinge of color. "Good—morning! Why don’t—you—ask—me, how I—slept?" Martha caught the labored words with difficulty. She caught, what was even more difficult, the intention to preserve the old tone of caustic raillery. "I never do," she answered imperturbably, playing up with gallant spirit, to the required pace. "I never do. Mornin’s, when folks ask you how you slep’, mostly it’s just for the chance to let you know how _they didn’t_." "Kath—er—ine?" "I see her before I come in here. She’s kinda played out, this mornin’. I guess we better let her rest a while, hadn’t we?" Madam Crewe’s eyes conveyed assent. Chatting lightly on, ignoring any reason for not doing so, Martha undressed the rigid little body, and laid it tenderly in bed. Somehow, she managed to prepare a breakfast which the Madam patiently suffered herself to be fed, though Martha knew it was a hardship.