“Ssshh! I don’t care whether you were asleep or not. You are as much use one way as the other. And I’m not mad. I’m just tired, same as I told you, and I can’t be bothered with you. Here! here is some money. Go down to the Seaside House and get your supper there. Then, after that--well, I don’t care what you do after that, so long as you don’t come back here and worry me.” Millard stared. This was too good to be true--so good and so non-understandable that he did not dare accept it at its face value. There must be something behind it. “Why--why, what on earth--?” he stammered. “Well--yes, I can get my supper at the Seaside. They turn out a pretty good meal there for thirty-five cents. But--but-- Say, what about the mail when it comes in? Don’t you want me to help you with that?” “No. There won’t be much of it and I had rather handle it myself, than have to handle you along with it. I don’t need you and I don’t want you.” “Well, I declare!... Humph! All right. I’m kind of tired, myself, and I’d just as soon have a little change and rest. I’ll go, to please you, Reliance. I’ll come back early.” “I don’t want you to come back early. I don’t care if you stay out all night. _Get_ out! That is all I ask.” Mr. Clark got out, got out hastily and thankfully. What this remarkable change in his sister’s attitude might mean he could not imagine, nor did he try. Supper at the Seaside House, where there were likely to be Boston “drummers” to listen to and gossip with, where the gang played pool every evening, where one might smoke a good five-cent cigar and not be nagged because of ashes on the floor--why, it was the promise of Paradise after Purgatory; and he had been in Purgatory ever since ten o’clock the previous night. And she did not care when he came home. She had said that very thing. The game of high-low-Jack would be going on in the scallop shanty. He might-- He almost ran along the sidewalk in his haste to get beyond the sound of her voice. At six Reliance locked the door of the shop and went into the house. She set about preparing supper. She was even less hungry now than she had been at dinner time, but she would, at least, drink a cup of tea--even two cups, although that was double her usual allowance. Tea was supposed to be a bracer, a strengthener for the nerves, and she was certain that her nerves would need strengthening before the night was over. She filled the kettle, set it on the kitchen stove, and then, returning to the dining room, she opened the door of the closet and stood looking down upon the traveling bag, bulky and black and menacing, on the floor beside the cooky jar. That bag, sent to her as it had been, could mean, she was certain, but one thing. That thing she must prevent if she could. But could she? Well, she could at least try. She sighed heavily and turned away.