spirit
like an angel and drawing near him, she said:

"Is there anything I can do for you, Cousin John?"

He started, looked at her with the same blank gaze he had hitherto cast
at the wall; then some words formed on his working lips and we heard:

"I can not reckon; I was never good at figures; but if Luke is gone, and
William, and Hector, and Barbara's boy, and Janet,--_how much does that
leave for me?_"

He was answered almost the moment he spoke; but it was by other tongues
and in another world than this. As his body fell forward, I tore open
the door before which he had been standing, and, lifting the almost
fainting Eunice in my arms, I carried her out into the night. As I did
so, I caught a final glimpse of the pictured face I had found it so hard
to understand a couple of hours before. I understood it now.

A surprise awaited us as we turned toward the gate. The mist had lifted
and a keen but not unpleasant wind was driving from the north. Borne on
it, we heard voices. The village had emptied itself, probably at the
alarm given by the lawyer, and it was these good men and women whose
approach we heard. As we had nothing to fear from them, we went forward
to meet them. As we did so, three crouching figures rose from some
bushes we passed and ran scurrying before us through the gateway. They
were the late comers who had shown such despair at being shut out from
this fatal house, and who probably did not yet know the doom they had
escaped.

* * * * *

There were lanterns in the hands of some of the men who now approached.
As we stopped before them, these lanterns were held up, and by the light
they gave we saw, first, the lawyer's frightened face, then the visages
of two men who seemed to be persons of some authority.

"What news?" faltered the lawyer, seeing by our faces that we knew the
worst.

"Bad," I returned; "the poison had lost none of its virulence by being
mixed so long with the wine."

"How many?" asked the man on his right anxiously.

"Eight," was my solemn reply.

"There were but eight," faltered the lawyer; "that means, then, all?"

"All," I repeated.

A murmur of horror rose, swelled, then died out in tumult as the crowd
swept on past us.

For a moment we stood watching these people; saw them pause before the
door we had left open behind us, then rush in, leaving a wail of terror
on the shuddering midnight air. When all was quiet again, Eunice laid
her hand