"Insley picked up some little belongings of hers, seeming to know them without being told, and because the time was so queer, and mebbe because death was in the next room, and mebbe for another reason or two, I could guess how, all the while he was answering her friendly questions about the little Cadoza boy--all that while the Personal, the _Personal_, like a living thing, hovered just beyond his words. And at last it just naturally came in and possessed what he was saying. "'I can't thank you enough for coming down here,' he says. 'It's meant everything to Chris--and to me.' "She glanced up at him with her pretty near boyish frankness, that had in it that night some new element of confidence and charm and just being dear. "'Don't thank me,' she says, 'it was mine to do, too. And besides, I haven't done anything. And I'm running away!' "He looked off up the road towards where, on its hill, Proudfit House was a-setting, a-glowing in all its windows, a-waiting for her to come, and to have her engagement to another man announced in it, and then to belong up there for ever and ever. He started to say something--I donno whether he knew what or whether he didn't; but anyhow he changed his mind and just opened the door for her, the parlour door that I bet was as surprised to be used as if it had cackled. "The Proudfit motor had stood waiting at the gate all this while, and as they got out to it, Dr. Heron drove up, and with him was Mis' Hubbelthwait come to enquire. So Robin waited outside to see what Dr. Heron should say when he had seen Chris's father again, and I went to the door to speak to Mis' Hubbelthwait. "'Liquor's what ails him fast enough,' Mis' Hubbelthwait whispers--Mis' Hubbelthwait would of whispered in the middle of a forty-acre field if somebody had said either birth or death to her. 'Liquor's what ails him. I know 'em. I remember the nice, well-behaved gentleman that come to the hotel and only lived one night after. "Mr. Elder," I says to him, severe, "you needn't to tell me your stomach ain't one livin' pickle, for I know it is!" An' he proved it by dyin' that very night. If he didn't prove it, I don't know what he did prove. "Alcoholism," Dr. Heron called it, but I know it was liquor killed him. No use dressin' up words. An' I miss my guess if this here poor soul ain't the self-same river to cross.'