Tilly supplied the water. Her heart was as heavy as lead. She was afraid to admit that she believed the terrible thing which, like the bile of some all-inclosing disease, was oozing into her consciousness. She led the child into the sitting-room and listlessly invited inspection of this or that article--the few photographs on the table, a china vase holding flowers, a new Bible which was the inscribed wedding-present of the minister's wife, and some other things which to Tilly now seemed to weep in sheer sympathy for her under the horror which brooded over her. But she fought off the suspicion. It couldn't be--it mustn't be. "My mother-in-law--Mrs. Trott--John's mother," she stammered in the effort to speak unconcernedly. "Being a widow, she will need money, help from me and John, won't she? Don't you think so, Dora?" "No, Aunt Jane says no," answered the child, making a wry face as she looked at a picture of Tilly's father. "Gee! what an old pie-faced hayseed this is! For the Lord's sake, who is it?" "But why won't she need it?" Tilly had heard the question, but did not want to spare the time for a reply which might or might not embarrass her iconoclastic guest. "John has been giving her part of his wages, hasn't he?" "Yes, but he has to call a halt somewhere, my aunt says. She says Liz can get all the money she needs if she won't throw it away as fast as she gets it and play her cards so she won't be fined so often." "Fined?" The word fell from Tilly's irresolute lips in sheer dread of further revelations. "Fined! What do you mean?" "'Soaked' by the judge, that is all I know," Dora quoted, indifferently. "About once a month they both have to go in and pay up or be jugged. Old Roly-poly said once that he paid the running expenses of this town himself. What are 'running expenses'? Hanged if I know." "I don't know." Tilly made an all but somnambulistic reply. Had some one--even John--died suddenly, she could not have been more shocked. Even John's support in her terrible strait seemed somehow likely to be withheld, for how could she go to him with such a matter, seeing that he had not fully confided in her? "I must be going now," the weird child remarked. "You see, I sneaked over and must get home before they wake up. I'll go in by the back way and change my dress, and they will never know about this lark. At least that's what I'm counting on. You may tell brother John I was over if you want to. He won't give me away. I want you to see the doll he sent me, and her bed and carriage. Gosh! they are scrumptious!"