"Billy Stark comes back to-morrow," said Madam Fulton. She took a chair, and laid her head back wearily.
"Next week. You go Wednesday. He goes Saturday."
Electra dared not remind her of that wild threat of marrying Billy Stark and sailing with him. Her grandmother looked a pathetically old woman, and such fantasy seemed to have withdrawn into its own place.
"Grandmother," she began delicately. She had a fear of disturbing something frail that might fall to pieces of its own weakness.
"No," she said. "I am going to Bessie Grant's. She'll help me pull myself together, and in the fall I shall move back to town."
"You are not feeling well, grandmother," she said solicitously.
"Feeling well!" The old lady repeated it with a fractious emphasis. "I'm worn out."
"Is it anything particular, grandmother?"
"Billy Stark is going away, isn't he? Isn't that particular enough? He's the only human creature left, except Bessie Grant and that pretty girl."
"Yes; but she's too young. She tires me; you all tire me, all but Billy and Bessie Grant. No, you can close the house, or I will, after you're gone. I shan't be in it."
There was something inevitably foolish to Electra in the regret of an old woman at losing the company of an old man whom she had not married at the proper time. She found herself hoping, with some distaste, that grandmother would forget him as soon as possible, and settle down into the decencies of age. But Madam Fulton seemed to have gathered herself and summoned energy for action. She sat upright now, and composed her face into more cheerful lines. She looked at Electra, and a wicked smile flickered out.
"I believe," said Madam Fulton, "if I have the strength, the day he sails, I believe I'll marry Billy Stark and go along with him."
Electra looked her pain and then her purpose to ignore it.
"I have left everything in complete order, grandmother," she said. "It will be easy to close the house. I have made my will."
"I have given you half my property. The other half I leave to the Brotherhood."
"For heaven's sake, Electra! What do you want to act like that for?"
Electra was too enamored of that deed to keep it hidden.
"It is for a monument to Markham MacLeod," she said, from her abiding calm. "But it is to be used by the Brotherhood. He would wish that."