have failed to answer the suggestion I made you a minute
since," I hazarded. "Will you pardon me if I put it now as a
question? Your niece, Mrs. Jeffrey, seemed to have everything in
the world to make her happy, yet she took her life. Was there a
taint of insanity in her blood, or was her nature so impulsive that
her astonishing death in so revolting a place should awaken in you
so little wonder?"

A gleam of what had made him more or less feared by the very urchins
who dogged his steps and made sport of him at a respectful distance
shot from his eye as he glowered back at me from the open door. But
he hastily suppressed this sign of displeasure and replied with the
faintest tinge of sarcasm:

"There! you are expecting from me feelings which belong to youth or
to men of much more heart than understanding. I tell you that I
have no feelings. My niece may have developed insanity or she may
simply have drunk her cup of pleasure dry at twenty-two and come to
its dregs prematurely. I do not know and I do not care. What
concerns me is that the responsibility of a large fortune has fallen
upon me most unexpectedly and that I have pride enough to wish to
show myself capable of sustaining the burden. Besides, they may be
tempted to do some mischief to the walls or floors over there. The
police respect no man's property. But I am determined they shall
respect mine. No rippings up or tearings down will I allow unless I
stand by to supervise the job. I am master of the old homestead now
and I mean to show it." And with a last glance at the dog, who
uttered the most mournful of protests in reply, he shut the front
door and betook himself to the other side of the street.

As I noticed his assured bearing as he disappeared within the
forbidding portal which, according to his own story, had for so long
a time been shut against him, I asked myself if the candle which I
had noticed lying on his mantel-shelf was of the same make and size
as those I had found in my late investigations in the house he was
then entering.

VI

GOSSIP

Next morning the city was in a blaze of excitement. All the burning
questions of the hour--the rapid mobilization of the army and the
prospect of a speedy advance on Cuba--were forgotten in the one
engrossing topic of young Mrs. Jeffrey's death and the awful
circumstances surrounding it. Nothing else was in any one's mouth
and but little else in any one's heart. Her youth, her