have done. I could tell how
very tall he was, how dark, how his brows made one black bar across his
forehead, how his eyes were set deeply under them, how his chin was
wide and keen and his left cheek flicked by a white scar near the
mouth. At the time in my furious excitement I only knew that I must
tell some one everything, or the thing would kill me. But whether it
was father's strange stern face, his seeming so calm and going out so
quietly, and yet in such haste; or whether it was some memory of the
hunted look of the man who had flung away the pistol, I wished I had
not described him so exactly. It would have been easy enough to have
said I could not remember him clearly.

I was so stunned by what had happened before my eyes that I could not
even formulate in my thoughts what it had been. The very impression of
terror that remained with me was confused, and mixed with wounding
pity. For though he had looked so wild I could not remember that he
had seemed ferocious or afraid. The look I remembered had not been
fear of what was going to happen to him, but horror of what had been
done--and horror at sight of me.

Voices in the street, sounding unwontedly loud and excited, reached me.
People were hurrying past the house--all hurrying downward in the same
direction. I saw Lee run across the yard and stand peering out of the
side gate. I put my hands over my ears, and up and down, up and down I
walked; and back and forth Abby followed me with a little plaid shawl
she was trying to put over my shoulders.

CHAPTER II

THE EVIDENCE

It did not seem possible that Mr. Dingley and father could be gone
longer than half an hour, but the hands of the clock went to nine and
then to ten before I heard them on the steps. I made a dash ahead of
Abby, and opened the door. "Did he get away?" The words flew off my
tongue before I could think. I knew it had been a dreadfully wrong
thing to say. "I mean the other man--is he dead?" I gasped. Father
had quickly closed the front door behind him, for there seemed to be
quite a crowd in the street, and there in the half dark I could see his
face, and Mr. Dingley's, only as palish spots in the gloom. The
thought came to me, "Of course he isn't going to tell me anything. He
is going to say it is nothing I ought to hear about, and that I must go
up-stairs."

"Ellie," he began--then he caught sight of Abby in the dining-room
door. He held out his hand to me. "Com