Virginia said nothing. Save for the firelight, which was a red glow from live coals, rather than any sort of flame, the big room was dark, and her mother took no notice of her, but Sam had his eyes on her over his left shoulder.
"Your mother has been keeping up the same old song and dance," he said, dryly; "so much so that she's clean forgot living folks want to eat at stated times. I reckon you'll have to make the bread and fry what bacon is left on that strip of skin."
Virginia said nothing to him, for her glance was steadily resting on her mother's despondent form. "Mother," she said, in a faltering, almost frightened tone, for she had been accustomed to no sort of deception in her life, and the part she was to play was a most repellent one—"mother, I've got something to tell you, and I hardly know how to do it. Down the road just a while ago I met a friend—a person who told me—the person told me—"
"Well, what did the person tell you?" Sam asked, as both he and the bowed wreck at the fire stared through the red glow.
"The person wants to help you out of trouble, mother, and gave me the hundred dollars you need. Before I got it I had to give my sacred word of honor that I'd never let even you know who sent it. I hardly knew what to do, but I thought perhaps I ought to—"
"What? You mean—oh, Virginia, you don't mean—" Jane began, as she rose stiffly, her scrawny hand on the mantel-piece, and took a step towards her almost shrinking daughter.
"Here's the money, mother," Virginia said, holding out the roll of bills, now damp and packed close together by her warm, tense fingers. "That's all I am allowed to tell you. I had to promise not to let you know who sent it."
As if electrified from death to life, Jane Hemingway sprang forward and took the money into her quivering fingers. "A light, Sam!" she cried. "Make a light, and let me see. If the child's plumb crazy I want to know it, and have it over with. Oh, my Lord! Don't fool me, Virginia. Don't raise my hopes with any trick anybody wants to play."
With far more activity than was his by birth, Sam stood up, secured a tallow candle from the mantel-piece, and bent over the coals.
"Crazy?" he said. "I know the girl's crazy, if she says there's any human being left on the earth after Noah's flood who gives away money without taking a receipt for it—to say nothing of a double, iron-clad mortgage."