ight!"

"Yes?" The single word was no more than a breath on her full lips.

The colonel hesitated.

"You need not fear to tell me--whatever it is, I--I am prepared for
anything--" said Evelyn, with a pause between each word.

"The judge is dead," said Harbison simply. "My poor old friend is dead!"

"Dead--Marshall's father dead!" She looked at him curiously, with a
questioning light in her eyes. "You have not told me all, Colonel
Harbison!"

"Not told you all--" he repeated.

"How did he die?"

"I think--I fear he shot himself, but of course it may have been the
purest accident--"

"It was not an accident--" she cried with a sob. "Oh, don't mind what I
am saying!" she added quickly, seeing the look of astonishment on the
colonel's face.

"Mrs. Langham may come up if she wishes!" called Doctor Taylor, speaking
from the head of the stairs.

Evelyn moved down the hall and paused.

"Does Marsh know?" she asked of the colonel.

"Yes, unfortunately we carried him into his father's room," explained
Harbison.

Evelyn went slowly up the stairs. The horror of the situation was beyond
words. As she entered the room where Marshall lay, Watt Harbison and the
doctor silently withdrew into the hall, closing the door after them;
but Langham gave no immediate sign that he was aware of his wife's
presence.

"Marsh?" she said softly.

His palpable weakness and his cut and bruised face gave her an
instinctive feeling of tenderness for him. At the sound of her voice
Langham's heavy lids slid back and he gazed up at her.

"Have they told you?" he asked in an eager whisper.

"Yes," she said, and there was a little space of time when neither
spoke.

She drew a chair to his bedside and seated herself. In the next room she
could hear Doctor Taylor moving about and now and then an indistinct
word when he spoke with Watt Harbison. She imagined the offices they
were performing for the dead man. Then a door was softly closed and she
heard footsteps as they passed out into the hall.

Evelyn kept her place at the bedside without even altering the position
she had first taken, while her glance never for an instant left the
haggard face on the pillow. Beyond the open windows the silver light had
faded from the sky. At intervals a chill wind rustled the long curtains.
This, and her husband's labored breathing were the only sounds in the
leaden silence that followed the departure of the two men from the
adjoining room. She was