“I was a bit fazed, but I shouldn’t be again,” Anna admitted as she rose. Then she caught her breath sharply at the thought of there being an _again_. And after all, why should there be? Though she couldn’t help being sorry for her, there was nothing she could do with that sort of person. Surely she couldn’t wish that sort of wife upon poor Mr. Langley! “And you will tell me how you get along?” the other asked. “Come here, you mean?” “Of course,” Mrs. Langley responded so promptly that Anna couldn’t help feeling how elated she must have been if the invalid had been the invalid of her fancy. She felt a bit indignant as she asked herself why, with absolutely nothing to do for twenty years and no real illness, this woman couldn’t at least have kept her figure and her complexion. “How soon can you do it, little girl?” Mrs. Langley added. “Not before next Saturday, for I’m in school--the academy. So you see I’m not what you’d call a little girl. Well--so long.” She held out her hand. The hand of the invalid was cold and clammy, besides being like a claw, and as she let herself out, on a sudden Anna shivered. The yellow face with its cavernous eyes, the sunken mouth, the gaping teeth, the claw-like grasp of her hand,--the girl made a wild dash to get away from it all only to ran violently into Mr. Langley, who was coming slowly up the walk with bent head. Apologising in profound distress, as if it had been his fault, he asked Anna if she had been looking for him, that being the sole reason that anyone but the doctor ever came to the parsonage. “No, sir,” faltered the girl oppressed by a sudden and awful sense of guilt towards him, “I came to see--your wife.” “What’s that, Anna?” he demanded looking at her as if he doubted her sanity or his own sense of hearing. “I’ve been--visiting with your wife,” the girl said and laughed hysterically. With a startled face, he pushed by her into the house. And only then Anna realised the whole force of the situation, the ugly, naked fact. She--that terrible old woman who was really an old hag, was Mr. Langley’s wife! She began to run, wildly, blindly, pursued by the terrible vision. She did not see the girl who lived in the lane come forth into the avenue on an errand, and ran directly into her arms. CHAPTER IV