“A lot,” said Polly frankly, “an awful lot. But what’s the use! He was backing us, of course, you know that—had been for a long while. We wanted help—we’re on our uppers now. We heard he was in here, and we came in ourselves to have a little talk with him over things. We were over on the railroad, don’t you see? We’ve had bad business all along for weeks. The war knocked us out. Oh, I tell you, we knew nothing about _this_—we hadn’t heard of any accident. And Jimmy was such a good chap!” “I presume you refer to my husband when you say Jimmy? Yes?” Marcia’s voice was not only icy, but worse. “Well,” resumed Polly uneasily, “I’ve known him for a long time, you see.” “I know all about the length—and the nature—of your acquaintance with my husband, Miss Pendleton.” “My real name is Amanda Brown,” said Polly, calmly. “Yes, Miss Brown? I don’t know whether or not my husband has made any provision for you in his will. I haven’t been made fully acquainted with the nature of his will. My lawyers have asked me to come back at once, but I have been stopping on here. It was hard—I was not quite ready to go away from him. He needed some one to watch him, don’t you think? “Now,” she went on, “I have been obliged to meet you——” “Well,” said Polly, with a shrug, “we wouldn’t have been so apt to meet back in the city.” “Hardly, I fear.” Polly reddened a little at this. “You don’t like me, Mrs. Haddon, do you?” said she directly. “Why should I?” “That’s right—why should you, when it comes to that? I’m not sure that I should if it were the other way about But one thing is sure——” “Need we discuss these matters at all? I don’t see why. This whole situation is not in the least of my making, or my liking.” “Oh, now, listen, Mrs. Haddon! I know a lot of things. I’m not what you are—I never had your chance. I’ve done the best I could with what I had, the same as you, maybe. If I had married him you’d never have taken him away from me!” “Indeed?” Her auditor did not even smile. “Women like you,” broke out Polly, waxing somewhat tremulous herself—“women like you don’t know anything about women like me. I didn’t run after Jimmy Haddon—he ran after me. Why did he? What made him? Didn’t you have every chance in the world to keep him? Who’s to blame—me or you or him—or all of us? I wasn’t running after him so much even now. Of course I didn’t know anything about what has happened, or I wouldn’t have come.” Marcia’s hands were intertwining nervously now. “Do you think I ought to talk to you at all now—coming here as you do—following him absolutely into his grave?” “I wish you wouldn’t,” said Polly, coloring hotly now. “Maybe I’m not as bad as you think—or anyway, different. If men drift to my sort, how can my sort help it? I’m only a rag and a bone and a hank my own self, I suppose. If it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else, maybe. If it hadn’t been me, maybe it would have been someone else for him too—that’s the way it goes.”