"Look at that. I am going home;
when you want me you will find me there." And without having so much as
glanced at the dead face so near him, he goes slowly towards his
cottage, holding his head proudly erect still.

Mr. O'Meara turns away from the corpse, and gazes for a moment after the
retreating form of his friend; then he picks up the handkerchief; it is
of softest linen, and across one corner he reads the embroidered name
of _Clifford Heath_. For a moment he stands with the telltale thing held
loosely in his hand, and then he bends down, spreads it once more over
the dead face, and turns to the men.

"This body must not be disturbed further," he says, authoritatively.
"One of you go at once and notify Soames, and then Corliss. Fortunately,
Soames lives quite near. Don't bring a gang here. Let's conduct this
business decently and in order. Do you go, Bartlett," addressing the
younger of the two men. "We will stay here until the mayor comes."

And Lawyer O'Meara buttons his coat tightly about him and draws closer
to the cellar wall, the better to protect himself from the drip, drip,
of the rain.

"It is a horrible thing, sir," ventured the mechanic, drawing further
away from the ghastly thing outlined, and made more horrible, by the
wet, white covering. "It's a fearful deed for somebody, and--it looks as
if the right man wasn't far away; we all know how he and Burrill were--"

"Hold your tongue, man," snapped O'Meara, testily, "keep 'what we all
know' until you are called on to testify. _I_ have something to think
about."

And he does think, long and earnestly, regardless of the rain;
regardless alike of the restless living companion and of the silent
dead.

By and by, they come, the mayor, the officers, the curious gazers; the
rain is nothing to them, in a case like this; there is much running to
and fro; there are all the scenes and incidents attendant upon a
first-class horror. A messenger is dispatched, in haste, to Mapleton,
and, in the wind and the rain, the drama moves on.

The messenger to Mapleton rides in hot haste; he finds none but the
servants astir in that stately house; to them he breaks the news, and
then waits while they rouse Frank Lamotte; for Jasper Lamotte has not
returned from the city.

After a time he comes down, pale and troubled of countenance; he can
scarcely credit the news he hears; he is terribly shocked, speechless
with the horror of the story told him.

By and by, he rec