d were not
wholly without effect.

Everywhere there was a nipping curiosity to learn how Judge Pike had
"taken" the strange performance of his daughter, and the eager were
much disappointed when it was truthfully reported that he had done and
said very little. He had merely discharged both Sam Warden and Sam's
wife from his service, the mild manner of the dismissal almost
unnerving Mr. Warden, although he was fully prepared for bird-shot; and
the couple had found immediate employment in the service of Ariel Tabor.

Those who humanly felt the Judge's behavior to be a trifle flat and
unsensational were recompensed late in the afternoon when it became
known that Eugene Bantry had resigned his position on the Tocsin. His
reason for severing his connection was dumfounding; he had written a
formal letter to the Judge and repeated the gist of it to his
associates in the office and acquaintances upon the street. He
declared that he no longer sympathized with the attitude of the Tocsin
toward his step-brother, and regretted that he had previously assisted
in emphasizing the paper's hostility to Joe, particularly in the matter
of the approaching murder trial. This being the case, he felt that his
effectiveness in the service of the paper had ceased, and he must, in
justice to the owner, resign.

"Well, I'm damned!" was the simple comment of the elder Louden when his
step-son sought him out at the factory and repeated this statement to
him.

"So am I, I think," said Eugene, wanly. "Good-bye. I'm going now to
see mother, but I'll be gone before you come home."

"Gone where?"

"Just away. I don't know where," Eugene answered from the door. "I
couldn't live here any longer. I--"

"You've been drinking," said Mr. Louden, inspired. "You'd better not
let Mamie Pike see you."

Eugene laughed desolately. "I don't mean to. I shall write to her.
Good-bye," he said, and was gone before Mr. Louden could restore enough
order out of the chaos in his mind to stop him.

Thus Mrs. Louden's long wait at the window was tragically rewarded, and
she became an unhappy actor in Canaan's drama of that day. Other
ladies attended at other windows, or near their front doors, throughout
the afternoon: the families of the three patriarchs awaiting their
return, as the time drew on, with something akin to frenzy. Mrs.
Flitcroft (a lady of temper), whose rheumatism confined her to a chair,
had her grandson wheel her out upon the porch, an