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“Perhaps so, but it’s the way I feel. Old Parson Jones used to say that people were marbled good and bad pretty even, but that in everybody there were one or two streaks just pure wicked. I guess Lou Carroll is my wicked streak. I haven’t seen or heard of her for years–ever since she married that worthless Dency Baxter and went away. She may be dead for all I know. I don’t expect ever to have a chance to pay her out. But mark what I say, Theodosia, if I ever have, I will.”

Mrs. March snipped off her thread, as if she challenged the world. Mrs. Stapp felt uncomfortable over the unusual display of feeling she had evoked, and hastened to change the subject.

In three weeks’ time Mrs. March was established in her new home, and the “old Carroll house” blossomed out into renewed splendour. Theodosia Stapp, who had dropped in to see it, was in a rapture of admiration.

“You have a lovely home now, Anna. I used to think it fine enough in the Carrolls’ time, but it wasn’t as grand as this. And that reminds me, I have something to tell you, but I don’t want you to get as excited as you did the last time I mentioned her name. You remember the last day I was to see you we were talking of Lou Carroll? Well, next day I was downtown in a store, and who should sail in but Mrs. Joel Kent, from Oriental. You know Mrs. Joel–Sarah Chapple that was? She and her man keep a little hotel up at Oriental. They’re not very well off. She is a cousin of old Mrs. Carroll, but, lawful heart, the Carrolls didn’t used to make much of the relationship! Well, Mrs. Joel and I had a chat. She told me all her troubles–she always has lots of them. Sarah was always of a grumbling turn, and she had a brand-new stock of them this time. What do you think, Anna March? Lou Carroll–or Mrs. Baxter, I suppose I should say–is up there at Joel Kent’s at Oriental, dying of consumption; leastwise, Mrs. Joel says she is.”

“Lou Carroll dying at Oriental!” cried Mrs. March.

“Yes. She came there from goodness knows where, about a month ago–might as well have dropped from the clouds, Mrs. Joel says, for all she expected of it. Her husband is dead, and I guess he led her a life of it when he was alive, and she’s as poor as second skimmings. She was aiming to come here, Mrs. Joel says, but when she got to Oriental she wasn’t fit to stir a step further, and the Kents had to keep her. I gather from what Mrs. Joel said that she’s rather touched in her mind too, and has an awful hankering to get home here–to this very house. She appears to have the idea that it is hers, and all just the same as it used to be. I guess she is a sight of trouble, and Mrs. Joel ain’t the woman to like that. But there! She has to work most awful hard, and I suppose a sick person doesn’t come handy in a hotel. I guess you’ve got your revenge, Anna, without lifting a finger to get it. Think of Lou Carroll coming to that!”

The next day was cold and raw. The ragged, bare trees in the old Carroll grounds shook and writhed in the gusts of wind. Now and then a drifting scud of rain dashed across the windows. Mrs. March looked out with a shiver, and turned thankfully to her own cosy fireside again.

Presently she thought she heard a low knock at the front door, and went to see. As she opened it a savage swirl of damp wind rushed in, and the shrinking figure leaning against one of the fluted columns of the Grecian porch seemed to cower before its fury. It was a woman who stood there, a woman whose emaciated face wore a piteous expression, as she lifted it to Mrs. March.