n--it might--mean--oh, a dozen
dreadful things. Was it possible that he knew that Richards could have
cleared him of guilt in that bygone time, and had been silently waiting
for a chance to even up accounts? At home, in their distress they got to
imagining that their servant might have been in the next room listening
when Richards revealed the secret to his wife that he knew of Burgess's
innocence; next Richards began to imagine that he had heard the swish of
a gown in there at that time; next, he was sure he _had_ heard it. They
would call Sarah in, on a pretext, and watch her face; if she had been
betraying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in her manner. They asked
her some questions--questions which were so random and incoherent and
seemingly purposeless that the girl felt sure that the old people's minds
had been affected by their sudden good fortune; the sharp and watchful
gaze which they bent upon her frightened her, and that completed the
business. She blushed, she became nervous and confused, and to the old
people these were plain signs of guilt--guilt of some fearful sort or
other--without doubt she was a spy and a traitor. When they were alone
again they began to piece many unrelated things together and get horrible
results out of the combination. When things had got about to the worst
Richards was delivered of a sudden gasp and his wife asked:

"Oh, what is it?--what is it?"

"The note--Burgess's note! Its language was sarcastic, I see it now." He
quoted: "'At bottom you cannot respect me, _knowing_, as you do, of _that
matter of_ which I am accused'--oh, it is perfectly plain, now, God help
me! He knows that I know! You see the ingenuity of the phrasing. It
was a trap--and like a fool, I walked into it. And Mary--!"

"Oh, it is dreadful--I know what you are going to say--he didn't return
your transcript of the pretended test-remark."

"No--kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us to some
already. I know it--I know it well. I saw it in a dozen faces after
church. Ah, he wouldn't answer our nod of recognition--he knew what he
had been doing!"

In the night the doctor was called. The news went around in the morning
that the old couple were rather seriously ill--prostrated by the
exhausting excitement growing out of their great windfall, the
congratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said. The town was
sincerely distressed; for these old people were about all it had left