wrapped in sables on the last ride she was ever to take.
A sense of waiting, more definite, more intense, than the tension of the long day at Megambo, settled over the slate-colored house. It was broken on the fourth Sunday after Philip's return when the three of them lunched, as usual on boiled mutton, at Uncle Elmer's. It was a gloomy lunch, tainted by the sense of Philip's sin. The gloom enveloped all of them, save Aunt Mabelle and her ten-year-old daughter, Ethel, who showed already signs of resembling her mother in feebleness of character and inertia of mind. The room was, through a lack of windows, dark, and under the fog of smoke that enveloped the Town it became even more cavernous and dreary; but Elmer Niman never permitted his wife to waste gas in illumination. One groped for food in the dark, while Elmer talked of the low pressure occasioned by the sad waste of gas in the Town.
The break came only after considerable preparation on the part of Emma. She said, quite casually, "I saw Reverend Castor yesterday. He came into the restaurant to see me."
"He's not looking as well," put in Aunt Mabelle. "It must be a strain to have an invalid wife. It's not natural for a man to live like that."
Elmer interrupted her, feeling perhaps that she was bound toward one of those physiological observations which she sometimes uttered blandly and to the consternation of all her world.
"He is a good man. We are fortunate in having him."
"God will reward him for his patience," observed Emma.
