found herself facing curious eyes. A sharp-faced
little hoosier stopped one day to ask for a drink of water when I was
away. He stared at her so intently that she was frightened; but he never
came again. The child was born. She died."

"When it was born," Baird asked, "who cared for her?"

"We were alone," answered Latimer. "I did not know whom to call. I read
medical books--for hours each day I read them. I thought that perhaps I
might be able to do--what was necessary. But on the night she was taken
ill--I was stricken with terror. She was so young and childlike--she had
lived through months of torture--the agony seemed so unnatural to me,
that I knew I must go for help--that I was not mentally calm enough to go
through the ordeal. A strange chance took me to a man who had years
before studied medicine as a profession. He was a singular being, totally
unlike his fellows. He came to her. She died with her hand in his."

"Did the child die too?" Baird asked, after a pause.

"No; it lived. After she was laid in the earth on the hillside, I came
away. It was the next day, and I was not sane. I had forgotten the child
existed, and had made no plans for it. The man I spoke of--he was
unmarried and lonely, and a strange, huge creature of a splendid
humaneness--he had stood by me through all--a mountain of strength--the
man came to my rescue there and took the child. It would be safe with
him. I know nothing more."

"Do you not know his name?" Baird asked.

"Yes; he was called Dwillerby by the country people. I think he had been
born a gentleman, though he lived as the mountaineers did."

"Afterwards," said Baird, "you went abroad as you had planned?"

"Yes. I invented the story of her death. I wrote the details carefully. I
learned them as a lesson. It has been my mother's comfort--that story of
the last day--the open window--the passing peasants--the setting sun--I
can see it all myself. That is my lie. Did you suspect it when I told
it?"

"No, God knows!" Baird answered. "I did not."

"Never?" inquired Latimer.

"What I have thought was that you had suffered much more than you wished
your mother to know; that--perhaps--your sister had suffered more than
you would reveal; and that you dreaded with all your being the telling of
the story. But never such tragedy as this--never--never!"

"The man--the man who wrought that tragedy," began Latimer, staring
darkly before him, "somewhere he stands to-night--unless his