toiler, Archibald Wingate, with whom was
the half-wit's present business. He had seen the last whisk of Mary's
blue skirt disappearing above the back-stairway, and, knowing that Amy
and she were waiting for Hallam, concluded that the trio had departed
together.

So he entered the little basement door gleefully. All seemed propitious,
yet he meant once more and carefully to examine the preparations he had
made, to see if there was any flaw anywhere. He was so absorbed, so
excited, that he scarcely breathed as he crept slowly along the inside
of the wall, just as a moment before he had passed along its outer
surface. At one spot he paused and tried a simple-looking tube that had
been brought from the outside, through a convenient aperture, into the
inside of the building. The thing looked harmless, yet it ran along the
groove where the floor and wall joined, clear into that cheery inner
office, where Archibald Wingate sat that very moment, signing his name
to one of the most generous letters of his life.

"There," he reflected, as he leaned back in his chair and tossed aside
his pen; "there, that is foolish enough to satisfy even my impractical
small kinswoman, bless her! A thousand dollars isn't much, but it's--a
thousand dollars; and when I double it by another thousand, which has
never been buried by any ancient ancestress, it makes a tidy sum for a
foundling lad. Poor 'Bony,' he hates me like poison. I wonder, when he
finds out that I've done this for him, when I place it in his hands
myself, and tell him, furthermore, that I have asked Fred Kaye to send
west for several more of those burros he's given us a sample of, and
that one is for the 'Rep-Dem-Prob' himself--I wonder, will there rise in
his stunted heart some perception of what life should mean; of what it
shall mean, during my last brief hold of it, to me? and all because of a
girl's bright trustfulness and love."

It was a day for musings. Even Fayette, intent on evil, had his
own--like Amy and the lonely old man in the silent office. He wondered,
pausing for a moment, how "it would feel to be blown up. That day when I
found the money he's took from me, if I'd had a bigger charge of powder,
would I ha' knowed what struck me, if it had gone off sudden? Hmm. I
almost hate to do it. He seems--he'll never guess, though, and he hadn't
any right. He's been again' me from the first. I'll do it. He hain't had
no mercy--I won't, neither."

So he crept softly back