When she had rehearsed every detail of the day, Marcia lifted her head: “I think,” she said, “that I am as safe at last as I ever can be. Jason will never do anything to harm me. All the mentality Martin Moreland has left will be occupied from now on with fulfilling the curse set upon him by Rebecca. I truly believe that I have nothing further to fear.” Nancy sat thinking for a long time. Then she looked at Marcia and said softly: “And now, Marcia, will you listen to the minister?” Marcia sat a long time in deep thought, and then she said quietly: “To have the love of a good man, to have the home and the security that he would give me if he did not know, might be a wonderful thing. But I could not marry him without telling him, because, so surely as I did not, some way, some of my graves would open and the dead would confront me; and there is the child that I would not be considered suitable to mother. The only way I can see out of it is for you and me to go on together making the best that we can of life.” It hurt Nancy Bodkin sorely to see Marcia suffer. She had a pang, too, for the minister, but deep in her heart she was ashamed of herself for the little throb of rejoicing that sprang up at Marcia’s words. She might dismiss her remotest fear. Nothing ever could sever their partnership or spoil their friendship; until one or the other of them lay down in the final sleep, the Bodkin Millinery would go on doing business and each of the partners would give to the other the undivided devotion of a sincere heart. When another winter had run its course, under the old apple trees of May, Jason sat on a bench in the orchard with young Jason on his lap. Kneeling in front of them, Mahala was playing a game almost as old as babies. Holding up one pink, bare toe for every line, she chanted: “This is a fat king, out for a ride, This is a fair queen, close by his side. This a tall soldier on guard with his gun; This a fine lady who walks in the sun. This is a baby curled up in his bed, Here go all of them over your head!” Jason and Mahala laughed together with gleeful shouts from the baby. As she lifted her head to push back her hair, Mahala glanced down the road and a flicker of white slowly coming beside the river caught her attention. She said nothing, but she kept watching, and after a time she recognized a tottering figure, bowed and stumbling along slowly. The penetrant sun of spring was beating mercilessly upon Martin Moreland’s old white head. When Jason realized who the traveller was, he drew back repulsed, but Mahala arose, and as Martin Moreland came past the odorous lilacs and across the grass toward them, she motioned him to a seat. He refused to be seated, but he drew himself together the best he could and made her a courtly bow.