to the
wood-shed. I thought if I saw my rope there I'd just take it, and run
home and say nothing to nobody.

"But I didn't see it, so I went back to the door and knocked. I
knocked three times, and nobody came. Then I opened the door a crack,
and hollered--'Mr. Basset!' says I, 'Mr. Basset!'

"I called a number of times, then I got out of patience. I thought
he'd gone away somewhere, and I might as well go in and see if I
couldn't find my rope. So I opened the door wide and stepped in.

"It was awful still in there--somehow the stillness seemed to hit my
ears. It was just like a tomb. That dreadful horror came over me
again. I felt the cold stealing down my back. I made up my mind I'd
just peek into the kitchen, and if I didn't see my rope, I wouldn't
look any farther; I'd go home.

"So--the kitchen door was ajar, and I pushed it, and it swung open,
and--I looked, and there--there!"

Suddenly the woman's shrill monologue was intensified by hysteria.
She pointed wildly, as if she saw again the awful sight which she had
seen through that open door.

"There, there!" she shrieked--"there! He was--there--oh--Willy--the
doctor--Jerome Edwards--Willy--oh, there, there!" She caught her
breath with choking sobs, she laughed, and the laugh ended in a
wailing scream; she clutched her throat, she struggled, she was
beside herself for the time, run off her track of reason by her
panic-stricken nerves.

Two pale, chattering women, nearly as hysterical as she, led her,
weeping shrilly all the way, into the house, and the crowd dispersed;
some, whose curiosity was not yet satisfied, to seek the scene of the
tragedy, some to return home with the news. Two men of the latter,
walking along the village street, discussed the amount of the
property left by the dead man. "It's as much as fifty thousand
dollars," said one.

"Every dollar of it," assented the other.

"It ain't likely he's made a will. Who's goin' to heir it? He 'ain't
got a relation that I know of. All the folks I ever heard of his
havin', since I can remember, was his step-father an' his brother
Sam, an' they died twenty odd years ago."

"Adoniram Judd's father was Simon Basset's mother's cousin."

"He wa'n't."

"Yes, he was. They both come from Westbrook, where I was born."

"Now they can pay off the mortgage, and get Henry's eyes fixed."

"Adoniram Judd ain't goin' to get all that money!"

"I wouldn't sell ye his chance on 't for forty thousand dollars.