urprise.

"Luther!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," she answered indifferently, not looking up, and unaware that John
was regarding her with a surprise which amounted almost to suspicion.

John let the subject drop, but as they rode home he had an uncomfortable
sense of unpleasant things to come: first of all why had the presence of
the will been concealed from him, Hugh Noland's partner and closest
friend? secondly, why had Luther Hansen been told? thirdly, why had
Elizabeth declined just now to discuss it with him after knowing about it
for some time? He could not put his finger on the exact trouble, but John
Hunter was affronted.

The truth of the matter was that Elizabeth had only heard of the will the
night before, and had been too stunned by other things to care much about
it. If she had thought about it at all she would have supposed that John
had been told also, but Elizabeth had been occupied with troubles quite
aside from material things, and now did not talk because she was concerned
with certain sad aspects of the past and almost as sad forebodings for the
future.

"You better come in too, Hansen," Doctor Morgan said to Luther, when they
arrived at the Hunter house.

Sadie had stayed with Hepsie at the house, and Luther had expected to take
her and go straight home. The two women had been busy in the three hours
since the body of Hugh Noland had been taken from the house. The mattress
which had been put out in the hot sun for two days had been brought in,
and order had been restored to the death chamber. There was a dinner ready
for the party of sorrowing friends who had loved the man that had been
laid to his final rest, and it was not till after it was eaten that the
subject of the will was mentioned again.

They sat about the table and listened to Doctor Morgan's remarks and the
reading of the important document.

"I have," Doctor Morgan began, "a letter from Mr. Noland written the day
before his death, in which he tells me that he has made a will of which I
am to be made the sole executor. In that letter he enclosed another sealed
one on which he had written instructions that it was not to be opened till
after his death. I opened the latter this morning, and in it he states
frankly that he has decided to voluntarily leave his slowly dissolving
body, and spare further pain to those he loves. Perhaps--perhaps I could
have helped him, if I'd known. I can't tell," the old doctor said
brokenly. "He asked me to