Lydia quavered. "What do you
think has happened to him? Do you think anybody--that is--? Oh, you
looked at me as though you thought I had something to do with it!"

"Come, come, Lyd. Pull yourself together. You're getting hysterical,"
urged Hardwick kindly. Then he turned to MacPherson. As the two men went
companionably down the walk and out into the street, the Scotchman said
apologetically:

"Of course, I knew Miss Lydia would be alarmed. I understand about her
and Stoddard. It made me hesitate a while before coming up to you folks
with the thing."

"Well, by the Lord, you did well not to hesitate too long, Mac!"
ejaculated Hardwick. "I shouldn't feel the anxiety I do if we hadn't
been having trouble with those mountain people up toward Flat Rock over
that girl that died at the hospital." He laughed a little ruefully.
"Trying to do things for folks is ticklish business. There wasn't a man
in the crowd that interviewed me whom I could convince that our hospital
wasn't a factory for the making of stiffs which we sold to the Northern
Medical College. Oh, it was gruesome!

"I told them the girl had had every attention, and that she died of
pernicious anaemia. They called it 'a big dic word' and asked me point
blank if the girl hadn't been killed in the mill. I told them that we
couldn't keep the body indefinitely, and they said they 'aimed to come
and haul it away as soon as they could get a horse and wagon.' I called
their attention to the fact that I couldn't know this unless they wrote
and told me so in answer to my letter. But between you and me, Mac, I
don't believe there was a man in the crowd who could read or write."

"For God's sake!" exclaimed the Scotchman. "You don't think _those_
people were up to doing a mischief to Stoddard, do you?"

"I don't know what to think," protested Hardwick. "Yes; they are
mediaeval--half savage. The fact is, I have no idea what they would or
what they wouldn't do."

MacPherson gave a whistle of dismay.

"Gad, it sounds like the manoeuvres of one of our Highland clans three
hundred years ago!" he said. "Wouldn't it be the irony of fate that
Stoddard--poor fellow!--a friend of the people, a socialist, ready to
call every man his brother--should be sacrificed in such a way?"

The words brought them to Stoddard's little home, silent and deserted
now. Down the street, the lamps flared gustily. It was after
eleven o'clock.

"Where does that boy live that takes care of the h