oul.--And I don't know where he is now."

Hastings, leaving the telephone, found Mrs. Brace carefully brushing
into a newspaper the litter made by his whittling. Her performance of
that trivial task, the calm thoroughness with which she went about it,
or the littleness of it, when compared with her complete indifference to
the tragedy which should have overwhelmed her--something, he could not
tell exactly what, made her more repugnant to him than ever.

He spoke impulsively:

"Did you want--didn't you feel some impulse, some desire, to go out
there when you heard of this murder?"

She paused in her brushing, looking up to him without lifting herself
from hands and knees.

"Why should I have wanted to do any such thing?" she replied. "Mildred's
not out there. What's out there is--nothing."

"Do you know about the arrangements for the removal of the body?"

"The sheriff told me," she replied, cold, impersonal. "It will be
brought to an undertaking establishment as soon as the coroner's jury
has viewed it."

"Yes--at ten o'clock this morning."

She made no comment on that. He had brought up the disagreeable
topic--one which would have been heart-breaking to any other mother he
had ever known--in the hope of arousing some real feeling in her. And he
had failed. Her self-control was impregnable. There was about her an
atmosphere that was, in a sense, terrifying, something out of all
nature.

She brushed up the remaining chips and shavings while he got his hat. He
was deliberating: was there nothing more she could tell him? What could
he hope to get from her except that which she wanted to tell? He was
sure that she had spoken, in reply to each of his questions, according
to a prearranged plan, a well designed scheme to bring into high relief
anything that might incriminate Berne Webster.

And he was by no means in a mood to persuade himself of Webster's guilt.
He knew the value of first impressions; and he did not propose to let
her clog his thoughts with far-fetched deductions against the young
lawyer.

She got to her feet with cat-like agility, and, to his astonishment,
burst into violent speech:

"You're standing there trying to think up things to help Berne Webster!
Like the sheriff! Now, I'll tell you what I told him: Webster's guilty.
I know it! He killed my daughter. He's a liar and a coward--a traitor!
He killed her!"

There was no doubt of her emotion now. She stood in a strange attitude,
leaning