ut
ten then. Ten years or less ain't such a heap of difference, not when
you hold your looks the way she does. Anyway, they been seen kissin'."

"You don't say!"

The informer nodded, pursing her lips. "It come to me pretty straight.
That old nigger Zeke, who does chores about, seen 'em with his own eyes,
and tol' me about it next day when he was doin' some work in my patch.
Said he caught 'em kissin' and just carryin' on, right in the public
road."

"The idea! What for do you s'pose they want the father pardoned out,
then? She got up the petition herself. Laws, what a mix-up! I shouldn't
think she'd dare have anything to do with either of them. Don't look
good, does it? Him killin' her husband and all."

It was here that the girl behind the counter, flushed and furious and
just about to speak, suddenly lost her color.

"There was some that never believed he done it, Miz Sykes. If you'd ever
known the French doctor--always so sort of soft and gentle in his ways,
didn't believe in huntin' rabbits unless for food, used to doctor
animals just as if they was folks. He didn't seem the sort of man to
make a killer. But there! You never can tell with for'ners. And Kildare
wa'n't the sort of man to let his wife go gallivantin' round the country
with a lover, that's certain. We was s'prised he stood it long as he
did. Oh, I ain't sayin' Dr. Benoix done his killin' in cold blood! He
prob'ly done it in self-defense. The gentlest critter'll fight if it's
got to. But killin' it certainly was. No axdent about that!"

They went toward the back store, still talking, unaware of the
white-lipped girl who slipped out from behind the counter and gained the
refuge of her buggy with trembling knees.

Her knees might tremble, but her lips did not. They were set in a
straight, grim line, and her brows met over eyes that had grown almost
black. It would have been difficult to recognize in this stricken face
the pink-and-white Dresden prettiness that had won her the sobriquet of
"Apple Blossom."

An old man, fumbling at his cap as she passed, suddenly paused and
stared after the buggy, aghast. He thought for the moment that he had
seen the ghost of Basil Kildare.

She went straight to her mother's office, a small room opening off the
great hall. She opened the door without knocking, and closed it after
her.

"One moment, please, I am busy," murmured Kate, glancing up from her
desk in surprise. She was not often interrupted so uncere