Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/199

 seen it coming. And Mary knew more than most, for she knew of the hasty, secret meetings in the room over Hennessey's saloon with men who came into the Town and out again like shadows. She watched the curious light in Krylenko's eyes in turn kindle a light in the pale eyes of an unecstatic old maid like Irene Shane. She felt the thing spreading all about her like a fire in the thick underbrush of a forest. It seemed to increase as the plague of typhoid began to abate. In some mysterious way it even penetrated the secure world settled upon the Seven Hills.

She had, too, a trembling sense of treason toward those whom the Town would have called her own people—but her heart leaped on the day when Krylenko told her that Philip, too, was on their side. He was, the Ukranian said, a member of the new Union: they had celebrated his joining months ago at Hennessey's saloon. It made Philip seem nearer to her, as if he belonged not at all to the two women who guarded him. Krylenko told her on the day when every one was certain that Philip was dying, and it served to soften the numb pain which seemed to blind her to all else in the world.

In the afternoon of the same day, Irene Shane said to her, "My mother is dying, and I've cabled to my sister, Lily, to come home." 

When Moses Slade was not in Washington, he always went on Sundays to the Baptist Church which stood just across the street from Emma's house of worship. It was not that he was a religious man, for