from his sister's lips and a suppressed but
equally vehement "Villain!" from mine; but neither of us had time for
more, for almost at the same instant the room filled with frightened
guests, among which I discerned the face and form of the old servant
Jonas, and the flowing robes and the white garments of Uncle Joe and the
graceful Edith.

To describe the confusion that followed would be beyond my powers,
especially as my attention was at the time not so much directed to the
effect produced by this catastrophe, as to the man whom, from the moment
Mr. Benson fell to the floor, I regarded as my lawful prey. He did not
quake and lose his presence of mind in this terrible crisis. He was
gifted with too much self-control to betray any unseemly agitation even
over such a matter as his father's sudden death. Once only did I detect
his lip tremble, and that was when an elderly gentleman (presumably a
doctor) exclaimed after a careful examination of the fallen man:

"This is no case of apoplexy, gentlemen!"

Then indeed Mr. Hartley Benson shivered, and betrayed an emotion for
which I considered myself as receiving a due explanation when, a few
minutes later, I observed the same gentleman lay his hand upon the
decanter and glass that stood on the table, and after raising them one
after the other to his nose, slowly shake his head, and with a furtive
look around him, lock them both in a small cupboard that opened over the
mantel-piece.

IV.

IN THE LIBRARY.

Mr. Benson was really dead. The fact being announced, most of the guests
withdrew. In ten minutes after he fell, the room was comparatively
clear. Only the various members of the family, together with the
gentleman I have already mentioned, remained behind; and, even of these,
the two ladies were absent, they having followed the body into the
adjoining room, where it had been reverently carried by the attached
Jonas and another servant whose face I did not see.

"A most unlooked-for catastrophe," burst from the lips of Uncle Joe.
"Did you ever suspect he was a victim to heart disease?" he now asked,
this time with looks directed toward the doctor.

"No," came from that gentleman in a short, sharp way, which made Hartley
Benson's pale face flush, though his eye did not waver from its steady
solemn look toward the door through which his father's form had just
been carried. "Mr. Benson was sound through and through a month ago. I
know, because I examined him pre