ing drew a heavy breath, and then went
on.

"Again, next day, it was like this-the world draining the heat.... I
watched from the Big Mill. I saw them again. He leaned over her chair
and buried his face in her hair. The proof was absolute now.... I
started away, going a roundabout, that I might not be seen. It took me
some time. I was passing through a clump of cedar when I saw them making
towards the trees skirting the river. Their backs were on me. Suddenly
they diverted their steps--towards the great slide, shut off from water
this last few months, and used as a quarry to deepen it. Some petrified
things had been found in the rocks, but I did not think they were going
to these. I saw them climb down the rocky steps; and presently they were
lost to view. The gates of the slide could be opened by machinery from
the Little Mill. A terrible, deliciously malignant thought came to me. I
remember how the sunlight crept away from me and left me in the dark. I
stole through that darkness to the Little Mill. I went to the machinery
for opening the gates. Very gently I set it in motion, facing the slide
as I did so. I could see it through the open sides of the mill. I smiled
to think what the tiny creek, always creeping through a faint leak in
the gates and falling with a granite rattle on the stones, would now
become. I pushed the lever harder--harder. I saw the gates suddenly
give, then fly open, and the river sprang roaring massively through
them. I heard a shriek through the roar. I shuddered; and a horrible
sickness came on me.... And as I turned from the machinery, I saw the
young priest coming at me through a doorway!... It was not the priest
and my wife that I had killed; but my wife and her brother...."

He threw his head back as though something clamped his throat. His voice
roughened with misery. "The young priest buried them both, and people
did not know the truth. They were even sorry for me. But I gave up the
mills--all; and I became homeless... this."

Now he looked up at the two men, and said: "I have told you because you
know something, and because there will, I think, be an end soon." He
got up and reached out a trembling hand for a cigarette. Pierre gave him
one. "Will you walk with me"? he asked.

Shon shook his head. "God forgive you," he replied, "I can't do it."

But Wendling and Pierre left the hut together. They walked for an hour,
scarcely speaking, and not considering where they went. At last Pier