the cheerfuler for John Wright's bein' in it."

"I'd like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale," he said.
"I'm anxious to get the lay of things upstairs now."

He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.

"I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right?" the sheriff
inquired. "She was to take in some clothes for her, you know--and a few
little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday."

The county attorney looked at the two women whom they were leaving alone
there among the kitchen things.

"Yes--Mrs. Peters," he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not
Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the sheriff's wife.
"Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us," he said, in a manner of
entrusting responsibility. "And keep your eye out Mrs. Peters, for
anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a
clue to the motive--and that's the thing we need."

Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a show man getting ready
for a pleasantry.

"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?" he said;
and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the others through
the stair door.

* * *

The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps, first
upon the stairs, then in the room above them.

Then, as if releasing herself from something strange, Mrs. Hale began to
arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which the county attorney's
disdainful push of the foot had deranged.

"I'd hate to have men comin' into my kitchen," she said
testily--"snoopin' round and criticizin'."

"Of course it's no more than their duty," said the sheriff's wife, in
her manner of timid acquiescence.

"Duty's all right," replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; "but I guess that deputy
sheriff that come out to make the fire might have got a little of this
on." She gave the roller towel a pull. "Wish I'd thought of that sooner!
Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up, when she
had to come away in such a hurry."

She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not "slicked up." Her
eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was off the
wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag--half full.

Mrs. Hale moved toward it.

"She was putting this in there," she said to herself--slowly.

She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home--half sifted, half not
sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What