nd why Anne should have
behaved in such a manner, and still less could he understand why the car
should have disappeared. He knew well that she could drive a motor, for
he had taught her himself; but that she should thus take possession of
his property and get rid of his man in so sly a way perplexed and
annoyed him. He and Trim stood amidst the falling snow, staring at one
another, almost too surprised to speak.

Suddenly they heard a loud cry of fear, and a moment afterward an
urchin--one of the choir lads--came tearing down the path as though
pursued by a legion of fiends. Giles caught him by the collar as he ran
panting and white-faced past him.

"What's the matter?" he asked harshly. "Why did you cry out like that?
Where are you going?"

"To mother. Oh, let me go!" wailed the lad. "I see her lying on the
grave. I'm frightened. Mother! mother!"

"Saw who lying on the grave?"

"I don't know. A lady. Her face is down in the snow, and she is
bleeding. I dropped the lantern mother gave me and scudded, sir. Do let
me go! I never did it!"

"Did what?" Giles in his nervous agitation shook the boy.

"Killed her! I didn't! She's lying on Mr. Kent's grave, and I don't know
who she is."

He gave another cry for his mother and tried to get away, but Giles,
followed by Trim, led him up the path. "Take me to the grave," he said
in a low voice.

"I won't!" yelped the lad, and tearing his jacket in his eagerness to
escape, he scampered past Trim and out of the gate like a frightened
hare. Giles stopped for a moment to wipe his perspiring forehead and
pass his tongue over his dry lips, then he made a sign to Trim to
follow, and walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Kent's grave. He
dreaded what he should find there, and his heart beat like a
sledge-hammer.

The grave was at the back of the church, and the choir boy had evidently
passed it when trying to take a short cut to his mother's cottage over
the hedge. The snow was falling so thickly and the night was so dark
that Giles wondered how the lad could have seen any one on the grave.
Then he remembered that the lad had spoken of a lantern. During a lull
in the wind he lighted a match, and by the blue glare he saw the lantern
almost at his feet, where the boy had dropped it in his precipitate
flight. Hastily picking this up, he lighted the candle with shaking
fingers and closed the glass. A moment later, and he was striding
towards the grave with the lantern casting a