Supporting herself against the wall, Katy crept along. At the end a door opened into the house proper, that seldom visited temple to the gods of order and cleanliness. The door now stood open.
"Are you sick?" gasped Katy. "Where are you? Did you fall?"
"No," came the slow answer. "I am here. You can make a light."
Falteringly Katy obeyed. On a bracket at the end of the hall hung a lamp; this she lighted with a great clattering of globe against chimney. Then, lifting the lamp, she carried it into the room from which the voice proceeded. Her scarlet shawl was still about her, her hair was disorderly from the squire's embrace, her eyes were wild and startled. She was a strange contrast to the room in which she stood.
Here was the great high bed with its carved posts, each terminating in a pineapple; here the interesting steps on which one mounted to the broad plateau of repose; here the fine curtains and the rich carpet,—all as Katy had left them after the last careful sweeping and dusting and polishing. But the bed had been disturbed; in it lay the mistress of the house, white and sick, but full of satisfaction over having accomplished her pitiful purpose.
Katy's wild eyes questioned her.
"It was time for me to come," announced Cassie, solemnly.
"It was time for you to come!" repeated Katy. "What do you mean?"
"My time has come," explained Cassie. "You are to go for the preacher."
Katy clasped her hands across her breast. She remembered now the bureau in which the white underclothes and the black dress were kept. She began to cry.