oor, saw in the street the
Something for which she had peered past me the other night.

The men carried it in at the door, and laid it on the divan. Josie, her
arms and shoulders still bare in the dress she had worn to the wedding,
broke away from Cornish, who was bending over her and saying things to
comfort her, and swept down the hall to the divan where Bill lay, white
and still, and clothed with the mystic majesty of death. The shimmering
silk and lace of her gown lay all along the rug and over the divan, like
drapery thrown there to conceal what lay before us. She threw her arms
across the still breast, and her head went down on his.

"Oh, pa! Oh, pa!" she moaned, "you never did any one any harm!... You
were always good and kind!... And always loving and forgiving.... And
why should they come to you, poor pa ... and take you from the things
you loved ... and ... murder you ... like this!"

Jim fell back, as if staggering from a blow. Cornish came forward, and
offered to raise up the stricken girl, whose eyes shone in her grief
like the eyes of insanity. Alice stepped before Cornish, raised Josie
up, and supported her from the room.

* * * * *

Again it was morning, when we--Alice, Jim, and I--sat face to face in
our home. An untasted breakfast was spread before us. Jim's eyes were on
the cloth, and nothing served to rouse him. I knew that the blow from
which he had staggered still benumbed his faculties.

"Come," said I, "we shall need your best thought down at the Grain Belt
Building in a couple of hours. This brings things to a crisis. We shall
have a terrible dilemma to face, it's likely. Eat and be ready to face
it!"

"God!" said he, "it's the old tale over again, Al: throw the dead and
wounded overboard to clear the decks, and on with the fight!"

CHAPTER XIX.

In Which Events Resume their Usual Course--at a Somewhat Accelerated
Pace.

The death of Mr. Trescott was treated with that consideration which the
affairs of the locally prominent always receive in towns where local
papers are in close financial touch with the circle affected. Nothing
was said of suicide, or of the place where the body was found; and in
fact I doubt if the family ever knew the real facts; but the property
matters were looked upon as a legitimate subject for comment.

"Yesterday," said, in due time, the _Herald_, "the Trescott estate
passed into the hands of Will Lattimore, a