In her mind Gerald spoke.

"Your mother--" he said and stopped.

"And--Mother?"

"Your mother died yesterday."

Her father's arm held tightly in her own, Scarlett felt her way

down the wide dark hall which, even in its blackness, was as

familiar as her own mind. She avoided the high-backed chairs, the

empty gun rack, the old sideboard with its protruding claw feet,

and she felt herself drawn by instinct to the tiny office at the

back of the house where Ellen always sat, keeping her endless

accounts. Surely, when she entered that room, Mother would again

be sitting there before the secretary and would look up, quill

poised, and rise with sweet fragrance and rustling hoops to meet

her tired daughter. Ellen could not be dead, not even though Pa

had said it, said it over and over like a parrot that knows only

one phrase: "She died yesterday--she died yesterday--she died

yesterday."

Queer that she should feel nothing now, nothing except a weariness

that shackled her limbs with heavy iron chains and a hunger that

made her knees tremble. She would think of Mother later. She must

put her mother out of her mind now, else she would stumble stupidly

like Gerald or sob monotonously like Wade.

Pork came down the wide dark steps toward them, hurrying to press

close to Scarlett like a cold animal toward a fire.

"Lights?" she questioned. "Why is the house so dark, Pork? Bring

candles."

"Dey tuck all de candles, Miss Scarlett, all 'cept one we been

usin' ter fine things in de dahk wid, an' it's 'bout gone. Mammy

been usin' a rag in a dish of hawg fat fer a light fer nussin' Miss

Careen an' Miss Suellen."

"Bring what's left of the candle," she ordered. "Bring it into

Mother's--into the office."

Pork pattered into the dining room and Scarlett groped her way into

the inky small room and sank down on the sofa. Her father's arm

still lay in the crook of hers, helpless, appealing, trusting, as

only the hands of the very young and the very old can be.

"He's an old man, an old tired man," she thought again and vaguely

wondered why she could not care.

Light wavered into the room as Pork entered carrying high a half-

burned candle stuck in a saucer. The dark cave came to life, the

sagging old sofa on which they sat, the tall secretary reaching

toward the ceiling with Mother's fragile carved chair before it,

the racks of pigeonholes, still stuffed with papers written in her

fine hand, the worn carpet--all, all were the same, except that

Ellen was not there, Ellen with the faint scent of lemon verbena

sachet and the sweet look in her up-tilted eyes. Scarlett felt a

small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound,

struggling to make themselves felt again. She must not let them

come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her

in which they could ache. But, not now! Please, God, not now!

She looked into Gerald's putty-colored face and, for the first time

in her life, she saw him unshaven, his once florid face covered

with silvery bristles. Pork placed the candle on the candle stand

and came to her side. Scarlett felt that if he had been a dog he

would have laid his muzzle in her lap and whined for a kind hand

upon his head.

"Pork, how many darkies are here?"

"Miss Scarlett, dem trashy niggers done runned away an' some of dem

went off wid de Yankees an'--"

"How many are left?"

"Dey's me, Miss Scarlett, an' Mammy. She been nussin' de young

Misses all day. An' Dilcey, she settin' up wid de young Misses

now. Us three, Miss Scarlett."

"Us three" where there had been a hundred. Scarlett with an effort

lifted her head on her aching neck. She knew she must keep her