foreign to life in Chellaston. Trenholme, who had no mind
to stand on the skirts of the crowd, thrust his reins into the hand of
his rustic groom, and went up the broad steps of the hotel, knowing that
he would there have his inquiries most quickly answered.

In the bar-room about thirty men were crowded about the windows, looking
at the preacher, not listening, for the double glass, shut out the
preacher's voice. They were interested, debating loudly among
themselves, and when they saw who was coming up the steps, they said to
each other and the landlord, "Put it to the Principal." There were men
of all sorts in this group, most of them very respectable; but when
Trenholme stood inside the door, his soft hat shading his shaven face,
his fur-lined driving coat lying back from the finer cloth it covered,
he was a very different sort of man from any of them. He did not know
that it was merely by the influence of this difference (of which perhaps
he was less conscious than any of them) that they were provoked to
question him. Hutchins, the landlord, sat at the back of the room on his
high office chair.

"Good evening, Principal," said he. "Glad to see you in the place again,
sir. Have you heard of a place called Turrifs Road Station? 'Tain't on
our map."

Trenholme gave the questioner a severe glance of inquiry. The scene
outside, and his proposed inquiry concerning it, passed from his mind,
for he had no means of divining that this question referred to it. The
place named was known to him only by his brother's letter. The men, he
saw, were in a rough humour, and because of the skeleton in his closet
he jumped to the thought that something had transpired concerning his
brother, something that caused them to jeer. He did not stop to think
what it might be. His moral nature stiffened itself to stand for truth
and his brother at all costs.

"I know the place;" he said.

His words had a stern impressiveness which startled his hearers. They
were only playing idly with the pros and cons of a newspaper tale; but
this man, it would seem, treated the matter very seriously.

Hutchins had no desire to annoy, but he did not know how to desist from
further question, and, supposing that the story of Cameron was known, he
said in a more ingratiating way:

"Well, but, sir, you don't want us to believe the crazy tale of the
station hand there, that he saw the dead walk?"

Again there was that in Trenholme's manner which astonished