"It's a fearful night for him to be out!" she muttered.
"Blood! Blood!" said a tragic voice from a dark corner by the stove. Barely visible in the ruddy half-dark of the room a pair of demoniac eyes met hers.
Mrs. Brenner threw her shrivelled and wizened mother-in-law an angry and contemptuous glance.
"Be still!" she commanded. "'Pears to me that's all you ever say—blood!"
The glittering eyes fell away from hers in a sullen obedience. But the tragic voice went on intoning stubbornly, "Blood on his hands! Red! Dripping! I see blood!"
Mrs. Brenner shuddered. "Seems like you could shut up a spell!" she complained.
The old woman's voice trailed into a broken and fitful whispering. Olga's commands were the only laws she knew, and she obeyed them. Mrs. Brenner went back to the stove. But her eyes kept returning to the clock and thence to the darkening square of window where the fog pressed heavily into the very room.
Out of the gray silence came a shattering sound that sent the ladle crashing out of Mrs. Brenner's nerveless hand and brought a moan from the dozing old woman! It was a scream, a long, piercing scream, so intense, so agonized that it went echoing about the room as though a disembodied spirit were shrieking under the rafters! It was a scream of terror, an innocent, a heart-broken scream!
"Tobey!" cried Mrs. Brenner, her face rigid.
The old woman began to pick at her ragged skirt, mumbling, "Blood!
Blood on his hands! I see it."