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 "She came to hate us before she died," persisted Willie.

"Yes . . . that's true enough. I guess she did hate us . . . ever since that affair over the taxes."

Willie clung to his idea. "But don't you see. It's all worked out just the same, just as if they had planned it on purpose. It's the second time they have cost the Mills thousands of dollars."

This, somehow, Mrs. Harrison found herself unable to deny.

"Tell me," she said presently. "How did they appear to take it? . . . Lily and Irene?"

Willie was once more fumbling with the ruby clasp. "I don't know. Irene wasn't even dressed in mourning. She had on the same old gray suit and black hat. She looked like acrow. As for Lily, she was able to smile when she spoke to me. But you can't tell how she feels about anything. She always smiles."

After this little speech Willie rose and began to move about the room, fingering nervously the sparsely placed ornaments—a picture of himself as an anemic child with long, yellow curls, a heavy brass inkwell, a small copy in marble of the tomb of Scipio Africanus, the single memento of a voyage to Rome. He drifted over toward the window and drew aside the curtain to look out into the storm.