an came along the road long after
daybreak, with a shovel over his shoulder, that I had the energy to
stir.

He saw me as I got up; he waved his hand.

"Bad fire," he shouted, not recognizing me.

"Whose house?" I asked.

"Judge Colfax."

My heart came gurgling up into my throat.

"Anybody lost in it?" I asked, trembling.

"No," said he. "Everybody got out. The servant got out and the Judge
saved his baby and there wasn't anybody else in it. Those three. That
was all."

His words stunned me at first. I said them over and over after he had
gone, because I could not seem to believe their meaning. Those three!
That was all! What I could not do by my will, another Will had done. The
Great Hand had swept away my fears! Above my grief I felt the presence
of one marvelous fact. The inheritance I had allowed to escape me had
been ended again! Once more my body was the only body in all the world
containing the terrible ingredients of my strain of blood. I raised my
face toward the blue of heaven and gave vent to a long cry of
triumphant, hysterical, passionate exultation.

I became possessed of the desire to make sure, to ask again, to hear
once more the phrase, "Those three. That was all," and then turn my back
on the town forever. With this idea I walked swiftly into the village,
choosing a back street until I had reached a point opposite the smoking
ruins of the Judge's house. The crowd was still buzzing back and forth
along the fence and gathered about the old-fashioned fire engine that
was still spitting sparks and pumping water. I slipped into the back
yard of the house just across the street, half afraid to show myself,
half mad to ask some one the question I had asked the man with the
shovel.

Then, suddenly, as I stood hesitating, I heard Margaret Murchie's voice
in the window above me--I recognized it instantly.

"There is some one at the door, Judge. The secret is safe with me," she
whispered.

At the same moment something fell at my feet. It was the tiny locket my
child had worn on its little neck from the day the mother had fastened
it there. What secret had Margaret meant? The locket was the answer! I
had been a plaything of some unknown, malicious fiend again. The rescued
baby was not the Judge's baby. That was the secret! The child I heard
crying there was mine!

I felt like a creature in a haunted place, pursued by devils, mocked by
strange voices in the air, deceived by the senses, tricked by