before.

The body of the stranger, now shrouded and coffined, rested upon a
bier in the centre of the room. At its head sat the minister of the
one church of which the town could boast.

The people were very silent, even more so than the occasion seemed to
warrant, but they studied each other's faces furtively, as if each
sought in the other some clue to the mystery which was to himself
impenetrable.

They were plain, hard-working people, and, for the most part, decent,
law-abiding citizens. The man in whose house they were assembled had
been with them for years. What he had been before he came among them
they had never asked. It may be that some of them had something in
their own past they would fain have forgotten. He had won their
respect and confidence, and in time their affection, for, as has been
said, he was generous, brave and helpful. He had been their chosen
leader. They had honored him with such small honors as they had to
bestow, and as his reputation as a political writer and speaker
spread, other and higher honors were more than hinted at.

To-day they were disturbed and restless, as if under the shadow of
some impending change or calamity. They waited in a tense, constrained
silence for what might happen. At length a door opened noiselessly and
Dixon stood before them. A thrill ran through every breast as they saw
him. A score of years might have passed over him, and not have wrought
the change of this one night. The assured carriage, the look of
strength and power and pride had vanished. The broad shoulders
stooped. The hair was matted over his brow, the features pinched and
livid.

He let his eyes wander over the faces of those present a moment; then,
in a strained, husky voice, began speaking.

"You who have been my friends," he said, "who for years have given me
your respect and confidence and support, look at the man lying there
in his coffin! _That is my work!_"

He paused. Every face blanched perceptibly. No one moved, but all
hung, with parted lips, upon the next words that strange, toneless
voice might utter. It began again:

"That man was my friend, and I was his; but he possessed one thing I
wanted--the love of a woman, his betrothed wife. Up to the time I
began to covet this woman's love, I was as truly his friend as he was
mine. Up to the hour when the devil put it into my power to swear away
his good name I had never dreamed of being false to him, though I had
reason to believe th