"And you haven't seen him since?" "Once. I--didn't hear from him, and I called him up. We--we met in the park. He said everything was all right, but he couldn't tell me just then. The next day he resigned from the paper and went away. Mrs. Pitman, it's driving me crazy! For they have found a body, and they think it is hers. If it is, and he was with her--" "Don't be a foolish girl," I protested. "If he was with Jennie Brice, she is still living, and if he was _not_ with Jennie Brice--" "If it was _not_ Jennie Brice, then I have a right to know who it was," she declared. "He was not like himself when I met him. He said such queer things: he talked about an onyx clock, and said he had been made a fool of, and that no matter what came out, I was always to remember that he had done what he did for the best, and that--that he cared for me more than for anything in this world or the next." "That wasn't so foolish!" I couldn't help it; I leaned over and drew her nightgown up over her bare white shoulder. "You won't help anything or anybody by taking cold, my dear," I said. "Call your maid and have her put a dressing-gown around you." I left soon after. There was little I could do. But I comforted her as best I could, and said good night. My heart was heavy as I went down the stairs. For, twist things as I might, it was clear that in some way the Howell boy was mixed up in the Brice case. Poor little troubled Lida! Poor distracted boy! I had a curious experience down-stairs. I had reached the foot of the staircase and was turning to go back and along the hall to the side entrance, when I came face to face with Isaac, the old colored man who had driven the family carriage when I was a child, and whom I had seen, at intervals since I came back, pottering around Alma's house. The old man was bent and feeble; he came slowly down the hall, with a bunch of keys in his hand. I had seen him do the same thing many times. He stopped when he saw me, and I shrank back from the light, but he had seen me. "Miss Bess!" he said. "Foh Gawd's sake, Miss Bess!" "You are making a mistake, my friend," I said, quivering. "I am not 'Miss Bess'!" He came close to me and stared into my face. And from that he looked at my cloth gloves, at my coat, and he shook his white head. "I sure thought you was Miss Bess," he said, and made no further effort to detain me. He led the way back to the door where the machine waited, his head shaking with the palsy of age, muttering as he went. He opened the door with his best manner, and stood aside. "Good night, ma'am," he quavered. I had tears in my eyes. I tried to keep them back. "Good night," I said. "Good night, _Ikkie_." It had slipped out, my baby name for old Isaac! "Miss Bess!" he cried. "Oh, praise Gawd, it's Miss Bess again!"