They found the little house alight from top to bottom, and full of people, whispering, moving about restlessly and foolishly, starting and turning their heads at any noise from upstairs. An old woman, who said she was the Knapps’ next-door neighbor and most intimate friend, stopped crying long enough to tell them in a loud whisper that the doctor said Mr. Knapp was still alive, but unconscious, and dying from an injury to the spine. The children, she said, had been taken away by a sort of relative, Mrs. Mattie Farnham, who would keep them till the funeral. Asked about Mrs. Knapp, she replied that Mrs. Knapp was with the doctor and her dying husband and was, as always, a marvel of self-possession and calm. “As long as there’s anything to do, Mrs. Knapp will be right there to do it,” she said. “She’s a wonderful woman, Mrs. Knapp is.” The Willings sat for a time, awkwardly waiting, with the other people awkwardly waiting, and then went away, leaving behind them a card on which Jerome had penciled the request to be allowed to be useful in any way possible “to the family of a highly respected member of the Emporium staff.” As they walked home through the darkness, they exchanged impressions. “That old neighbor’s head is just like a snake’s, didn’t you think?” said Jerome. “She seemed very sympathetic, I thought,” said Nell extenuatingly. “She did seem to think a lot of Mrs. Knapp,” admitted Jerome. “All the women in St. Peter’s do,” said Nell. “Mrs. Prouty says she doesn’t know what they would do in parish work if it weren’t for Mrs. Knapp. She’s one of the _workers_, you know. And a good headpiece too.” “I imagine she’s had to develop those qualities or starve to death,” conjectured Jerome, forgetting for an instant that the man he was criticizing lay at the point of death. The memory of this kept them silent for a moment and then Nell asked, “Did you notice that living-room?” “You bet your life I did,” said her husband with a lively professional interest. “The only living-room I’ve seen in this town that had any style to it. Did you see that sofa? And those curtains?” “They say she’s a wonderful housekeeper. The kind who stays right at home and sticks to her job. You never see her out except at church.” “No, I don’t believe I’ve ever laid eyes on her,” said Jerome. “And people are always talking about how beautifully her children are brought up. With real manners, you know. And such perfect ways at table. How _do_ you suppose she does it?” “What _did_ she ever see in Knapp?” Jerome cast out the age-old question with the invariable, ever-fresh accent of amazement which belongs with it. “Oh, they married very young,” said thirty-year-old Mrs. Willing wisely. “I believe he hadn’t finished his course at the State University. He was specializing in English literature.” “He _would_!” ejaculated Jerome, pregnantly. His wife laughed. And then they both remembered again that the man was dying.