Alice kept a rigorous gaze full of cruel pity steadily upon her mother's face. "Why, yes--I----" She turned to Alice. "I have so much to do, Alice, I can't----" As she assisted herself to her feet, her flabby grip fell from the edge of the table. She swayed a little. "I left the oven on." "You sit down." Alice tried to push her back. "No, no! I must turn it off." She brushed by and left Alice looking after her. Mr. Farley tried to be elaborately unmindful of by-play and he pretended not to see his wife's wearily bowed head and the palsied tremor of her thin neck. As she went out, her shoulders rounded, her knees loose, her head thrust forward, her feet dragging the carpet, she left vividly the impression of her very thin neck, taut and elongated, like the neck of a goose when it attempts flight. She held her sharp elbows at right angles to her sides with the same rigid anticipation of haste. "Has--has----" Mr. Farley could not bear to confess to the actuality. "Couldn't you let her rest for a week, Alice? You don't expect to get another position at once. As long as you are at home it seems to me that you and I could combine to keep the house going and let her off." "She wouldn't do it. Pottering around consoles her more than anything else." There was silence. Mr. Farley gulped his coffee. His face remained flushed and there were tears of discomfort in his eyes. "_You_ know what's the matter with Mamma, Father!" Alice's subdued voice sounded to him almost threatening. Mr. Farley gazed at his daughter helplessly. "Why, no--I--no----" He looked so much like a startled baby that Alice wanted to laugh. "She knows Mrs. Wilson is in town and----" Mr. Farley interrupted hurriedly. "But, my dear child, I--I----" He moved his knife and fork nervously about. Alice felt strong. Her frankness gave her the relief which the maniac feels in his cruelty when he touches flesh and it responds to him with sentience. "Don't think I don't understand your situation, Father. I do. I'm simply trying to look at it from Mamma's standpoint." He glanced up. Their eyes met. Alice had swung back on the two rear legs of her chair, her coarse hand on the edge of the table holding her steady. Her eyes were self-righteously excited, her mouth harsh with determination. To make him feel! She longed for that sympathetic quiver. Darkness. Behind her thoughts, two sharp strokes from the scissors let out the clotted honey of pain, too sweet for the veins. "Mamma doesn't really love you any more than you love her, Papa." Mr. Farley glanced nervously toward the kitchen door. His features suddenly relaxed in the flaccidness of self-pity. His eyes shone dimly. "I don't think you realize the true satisfaction there is in duty well done, Alice," he said shakily. "Things may be----This is no place to--to discuss details--but I would not knowingly hurt your mother for anything on earth."