se in the valley whenever trouble
brooded there, and always had brought with it good cheer and hope for
now close upon half-a-century.

"A wet day, Mrs. Trent, a wet day. But seems to me there are signs of
clearing. It is always much pleasanter to look for fair weather than
for foul, don't you think so?"

Mrs. Trent nodded.

"Doctor McMurray," she said, "I was almost afraid to go to the door
when I heard you drive up; I thought the lawyers might be coming
already."

"The lawyers?" he echoed, "What, can they be troubling you again?"

"Yes, I got a letter from the district attorney's office yesterday
saying that he would send a couple of men out to-day."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Trent, for I know it will be hard for
you to go over the thing again. I had hoped that when your husband's
trial was over they would let you alone. Now that poor Jacob has paid
the biggest price a man can pay, it seems that common decency ought to
keep them from worrying you about the matter any more."

"Well," she said, clasping her hands and looking absently out the
window, "I presume they want to make quite sure. Mrs. Withey's case is
coming up again the first of the week, you know, and there must be no
mistake."

"But I can't see how there can be any mistake," exclaimed the doctor.
"At Jacob's trial everything was so clear, his guilt was so fixed,
that there seemed no chance for a mistake. Mrs. Trent, it looked to
me, prejudiced in favor of your husband as I was, that there could be
no doubt that Jacob gave old Mr. Withey the arsenic and that Mrs.
Withey was his equally guilty accomplice. I think this second trial
must only be a repetition of the first, and that Mrs. Withey must be
found the murderess of Andrew Withey, just as Jacob Trent was proven
murderer."

Mrs. Trent leaned forward in her chair. Her hands were clenched and
every muscle in her frail body was drawn tense. The look in her eyes
startled the good doctor, and, thinking that he had recalled too
harshly the ugliness of her husband's crime, hastened to make amends.

"Mrs. Trent," he said, "I am sorry that I spoke so. It was cruel of
me."

"No, no," the woman answered thickly, "I am used to that, it doesn't
shock me to hear so much about Jacob now. But tell me, doctor, tell
me, are you sure she will not get off? Will they treat her as they did
Jacob?"

"What, Mrs. Trent, you surely wouldn't wish trouble to any fellow
creature if it could be avoided, would you