hen we meet it, with an alien dread, as of an intrusion from
some lost star, some wandering world that is Hell.

"Murdered!" cried Maitland. "Why, Barton, you must be dreaming! Who on
earth could have murdered poor Shields? If ever there was a man who was
no one's enemy but his own, that man was Shields! And he literally had
nothing that anyone could have wanted to steal. I allowed him so much--a
small sum--paid weekly, on Thursdays; and it was a Wednesday when he
was--when he died. He could not have had a shilling at that moment in
the world!"

"I am very sorry to have to repeat it, but murdered he was, all the
same, and that by a very cunning and cautious villain--a man, I should
say, of some education.

"But how could it possibly have been done? There's the evidence before
you in the paper. There was not a trace of violence on him, and the
circumstances, which were so characteristic of his ways, were more
than enough to account for his death. The exposure, the cold, the mere
sleeping in the snow--it's well known to be fatal Why," said Maitland,
eagerly, "in a long walk home from shooting in winter, I have had
to send back a beater for one of the keepers; and we found him quite
asleep, in a snowdrift, under a hedge. He never would have wakened."

He was naturally anxious to refute the horrible conclusion which Barton
had arrived at.

The young doctor only shook his head. His opinion was manifestly fixed.

"But how can you possibly know better than the jury," urged Maitland
peevishly, "and the coroner, and the medical officer for the district,
who were all convinced that his death was perfectly natural--that he got
drunk, lost his way, laid down in the cart, and perished of exposure?
Why, you did not even hear the evidence. I can't make out," he went on,
with the querulousness of an invalid, "why you should have come up just
to talk such nonsense. The coroner and the jury are sure to have been
right."

"Well, you see, it was not the coroner's business nor the jury's
business, to know better than the medical officer for the district,
on whose evidence they relied. But it is _my_ business; for the said
officer is my partner, and, but for me, our business would be worth very
little. He is about as ignorant and easy-going an excellent old fellow
as ever let a life slip out of his hands."

"Then, if you knew so much, why didn't you keep him straight?"

"Well, as it happened, I was down in Surrey with my people, at