if not to
ruin, at least perilously close to it. He had run away with the girl he
loved, and now, through him, even Hiram's good name was gone.

Neither did the suspicions against him remain passive; they became
active.

Goldsmiths' bills, to the amount of several thousand pounds, had been
taken in the packet and Hiram was examined with an almost inquisitorial
closeness and strictness as to whether he had or had not knowledge of
their whereabouts.

Under his accumulated misfortunes, he grew not only more dull, more
taciturn, than ever, but gloomy, moody, brooding as well. For hours he
would sit staring straight before him into the fire, without moving so
much as a hair.

One night--it was a bitterly cold night in February, with three inches
of dry and gritty snow upon the ground--while Hiram sat thus brooding,
there came, of a sudden, a soft tap upon the door.

Low and hesitating as it was, Hiram started violently at the sound. He
sat for a while, looking from right to left. Then suddenly pushing back
his chair, he arose, strode to the door, and flung it wide open.

It was Sally Martin.

Hiram stood for a while staring blankly at her. It was she who first
spoke. "Won't you let me come in, Hi?" said she. "I'm nigh starved with
the cold and I'm fit to die, I'm so hungry. For God's sake, let me come
in."

"Yes," said Hiram, "I'll let you come in, but why don't you go home?"

The poor girl was shivering and chattering with the cold; now she began
crying, wiping her eyes with the corner of a blanket in which her head
and shoulders were wrapped. "I have been home, Hiram," she said, "but
dad, he shut the door in my face. He cursed me just awful, Hi--I wish I
was dead!"

"You better come in," said Hiram. "It's no good standing out there in
the cold." He stood aside and the girl entered, swiftly, gratefully.

At Hiram's bidding black Dinah presently set some food before Sally and
she fell to eating ravenously, almost ferociously. Meantime, while she
ate, Hiram stood with his back to the fire, looking at her face that
face once so round and rosy, now thin, pinched, haggard.

"Are you sick, Sally?" said he presently.

"No," said she, "but I've had pretty hard times since I left home, Hi."
The tears sprang to her eyes at the recollection of her troubles, but
she only wiped them hastily away with the back of her hand, without
stopping in her eating.

A long pause of dead silence followed. Dinah sat crouched togeth