-love and pain! A divine anger, I may call
it. I propose to make myself her rescuer afterward, and establish myself
in her gratitude and confidence. You are to help me do this by watching
the house from the inside."

"Dishonorable!"

"You were the friend of William Zane, the murdered man. Every obligation
of friendship impels you to discover his murderer. You are rich; lend me
money to continue my investigations. I know this is a cool proposition;
but it is better than spending it on churches."

"Very well," wrote Duff Salter, "as the late Mr. Zane's executor, I will
spend any proper sum of money to inflict retribution upon his injurers.
I will watch the house."

They went home through Palmer Street, on which stood the little brick
church--the street said to be occasionally haunted by Governor Anthony
Palmer's phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his twenty-one
children in plush breeches and Panama hats, crying, "Water lots! water
fronts! To let! to lease!"

As Duff Salter entered the house he saw the school director indicated by
Calvin Van de Lear sitting in the parlor with Podge Byerly. For the
first time Duff Salter noticed that they looked both intimate and
confused. He tried to reason himself out of this suspicion. "Pshaw," he
said; "it was my uncharitable imagination. I'll go back, as if to get
something, and look more carefully."

As the deaf man reopened the parlor-door he saw the school director
making a motion as if to embrace Podge, who was full of blushes and
appearing to shrink away.

"There's no imagination about that," thought Duff Salter. "If I could
only hear well enough my ears might counsel me."

He felt dejected, and his suspicions colored everything--a most
deplorable state of mind for a gentleman. Agnes, too, looked guilty, as
he thought, and hardly addressed a smile to him as he passed up to his
room.

Duff Salter put on his slippers, lighted his gas, drew the curtains down
and set the door ajar, for in the increasing warmth of spring his grate
fire was almost an infliction.

"I have not been wise nor just," he said to himself. "My pleasing
reception in this house, and feminine arts, have altogether obliterated
my great duty, which was to avenge my friend. Yes, suspicion was my
duty. I should have been suspicious from the first. Even this vicious
young Van de Lear, shallow as he is, becomes my unconscious accuser. He
says, with truth, that every obligation of friendship impels