Madam Crewe's head fell forward upon her breast.
* * * * *
The clock had just struck half-past five, when Martha groped her way downstairs.
She had her work "cut out for her," as she would have expressed it, and must start in promptly. She had just kindled a new fire in the kitchen-range, and was about to set out for the henhouse, and cow-barn, when a step on the porch brought her up standing.
In a second she had crossed the room, swung open the kitchen-door.
"Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless undertone of one brought face to face with a dread turned reality.
Katherine seemed to understand without need of explanation. She shook her head.
"No—grandmother's not sick. Grandmother is all right. But—I'm going away. I've left home. I'll never go back! Never! We had it out together last night, grandmother and I. Last night, and all night. I'll never cross that doorsill again, if I have to beg in the streets, or—starve."
Martha quietly closed the door, led Katherine to a chair, then set the water-kettle on the stove, without asking a question, saying a word.
"I've come straight to you, Mrs. Slawson," the girl continued breathlessly, "because you're my only friend in the place. The only one who knows anything about the kind of life I've led, and would understand."