From the outside he gazed at the house. It was a pretty cottage of a cheap kind. They had lived there for three years, and Martha’s vines had grown. Her flower bed, so carefully tended, how pretty it was! On the opposite side of the road lay a great vacant lot—a pasture on the city outskirts. Trees were there—and cows. In summer, children played among the grasses. In winter, they coasted. It was just the place for Lucianna—for Martha—for Enos, too.
“Got to leave it,” groaned the man. “No use talkin’. It’s pay or get out. Plenty wants it—and old Craddock won’t wait again. Third time we’ll have moved. Confound Minna’s weddin’ an’ a deceivin’ woman. If I’d known it—oh! if I only had—but I said I’d pay an’ I did. Now, let her do some payin’.”
Lucianna tapped on the window and beamed at him. His answering smile was a ghastly farce. Tears were on the round cheeks of Enos as he hurried away. Last night he had been so confident and happy. He stumbled, walking on.
No suspicious moisture showed on Martha’s cheeks, as she marched over her doorsill twenty minutes later. Her tears had dried. A hard determination glittered in the black eyes. Under her hastily arranged bonnet, Mrs. Matchett’s face, strained and set, was tense with resolve.
Lucianna did not witness her departure, else there would have been wailing and much pounding on the window. Fortunately the girl had fallen asleep. Only on occasions of great moment was she left alone. This was one of them.
Martha hastened along.
The old sign of “Morley, Cowperthwait, Rensellaer and Company” still remained over the entrance of the great department store—but the kindly old founder was gone.
Martha knew that—she had read of his death, and the passage of the business into new hands. But that old bill wouldn’t be a worry. She had a whole string of excuses and explanations for the lingering liquidation of her debt in the case of the resurrection of this buried but haunting ghost. Now, Enos had “gone and paid it,” to the ruin of them all.
Through the throng she pushed and elbowed. How changed everything was. How busy and big. Martha had not entered that growing emporium since the date of her reckless purchase.
For a second her heart failed at the enormity of her mission. Then she clenched her teeth and grabbed a passing bundle boy by the shoulder.