But, leaning on her sunshade, Jane only laughed recklessly and satirically. "Pull in your horns, Liz, old girl," she said. "I'm not giving you any worse medicine than I'm taking myself. Huh! I guess not! Huh! I'm only telling you what's being said in this darned town. They all say, judging from her looks, that John's wife was as decent a country girl as ever lived, and that if her father had met you the day he came loaded for bear he would have put daylight through you. As for me, they say John did my duty for me. Huh! it is a hell of a mix-up, isn't it? But I don't care. I believe I'm all in. I feel it in my bones, and I don't give a damn when I keel over. I hope I won't suffer, though. Whew! I don't like to think of that! Look how Mag Sebastian faced the music in Atlanta. When that fool shoe-drummer got married last week it was piff! bang! and Mag gave a coroner's jury a job. Huh! They all say who saw Mag in her fine casket that she looked like she was asleep. You see, they combed her red bangs down so as to hide the bullet-hole, and dressed her up nice. And flowers! Gosh! every girl on the town piled 'em in and heaped 'em over her. But Mag couldn't smell 'em. Huh! I guess not!" "What ails you?" Lizzie asked, her lips trembling, her eyes wide with grim inquiry, her tone one of anxious appeal, rather than that of her earlier resentment. "Huh! Nothing, Liz, old girl!" Jane replied, doggedly. "I guess I am having different thoughts from you, that's all. I think certain things all day long, no matter who I'm with--laughing, dancing, drinking, shuffling a deck, or giving taffy to a man. Huh! Maybe it is because I know something--huh! something that you don't know." "What do you mean now?" Lizzie demanded, suspiciously. "Never mind what I mean," was the stubborn retort, as Jane stabbed at the straw matting with the ferrule of her sunshade. "Let well enough alone, Liz Trott. If what I know makes me see sights and hear sounds in the dead of night, what good would it do to bring it onto you?" Lizzie laid down the powder-puff she was using and bent lower over the rambling speaker. "You _do_ know something," she said, under her breath. "You knew it yesterday. What do you mean by deviling me this way? You had it on your mind last night while the crowd was here and after they left. They knew it, too. I remember now how they looked at one another." "I don't know anything," Jane said, doggedly, with a cloud across her wan face, and she got up, sighing. "I know I'll go stark, staring crazy if this keeps up. Stop your tongue! Let me alone! Huh! I know what's good for you." Therewith Jane left the room and all but staggered to her own. "She does know something," Lizzie Trott mused, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She completed her toilet and went down to the kitchen. A negro woman was at work there preparing supper. "Don't burn the bread again, Mandy," she said, carelessly, her mind still occupied by the conversation just ended.